“In a 15 metre jump in Venezuela's river Yuruaní I broke two vertebrae, and since then I live my life on wheels. I used to ski standing; now I ski sitting. I used to train for the half marathon; now I swim every day to prepare for the Getaria Zarauz crossing. I used to take to the hills on foot; now I go on my quad bike… I feel fortunate to have been given a second chance to continue enjoying nature as part of a team.”
After the accident, Antxon took a couple of years to recover and regain strength with physiotherapists, gym exercises and the like, and then he went back to sports. “I went on kayaks again, on accessible rivers that don't have any sections where you have to do any carrying to row with my kids and my friends, and most importantly I started to ski again. Now this is my favourite sport – wheelchair skiing offers a great deal of freedom, the chance to move very fast and enjoy the mountains in the winter”. He also started to ride a quad bike, “an automatic vehicle which allows me, without having to adapt it, to go to the hills year round, be there mud, sand or snow … It even allows me to travel into the Moroccan desert or to Romania in the company of good friends with whom to enjoy a nomadic life.”
The fact is, before the accident, Antxon had a very active lifestyle, and he couldn't bear to give it up. So he has even gone back to “Al filo de lo imposible”, the programme where he had taken part, travelling around the world as a kayaker. Nowadays, he is the presenter of the “Viviendo Al Filo con…” series, where “we interview different people in the series and they tell us about their experiences, both in “Al Filo…” and in practising their activity. With them I have been able to go on a hot-air balloon and a small airplane, scuba diving, climbing with ascenders, canyoneering, bike riding (with my BATEC ELECTRIC)…”
Antxon moves about with BATEC ELECTRIC since April 2012. And he uses is “for everything: I no longer use my car in Pamplona, I just move around everywhere with my BATEC ELECTRIC, which has changed my life for the better. Now I can enjoy visiting a park or a city. Before I used to have to watch the ground to push the chair along, and now I can simply concentrate on chatting to friends or family and I can even hold someone's hand, or go arm in arm. It is a great change in my life as a wheelchair user.”
Antxon travels a great deal and takes his BATEC ELECTRIC on all his trips, except when he goes on a quad. “Now I enjoy cities, I'm the first one to get to see the sites to visit or to look for a place to eat. Travelling to big cities had lost its charm on the wheelchair, it wasn't worth the effort. But now it is a real joy, a new opportunity to explore the world”.
In this blog entry, Antxon recounts his first impressions of when he started to use his BATEC ELECTRIC: http://www.antxonarza.com/blog/2012/04/23/volver-a-pasear/ A long list of great comments coming from someone as demanding as him.
You can follow Antxon's adventures on his website and on his blog: www.antxonarza.com
You can watch the programmes he presents for “Al Filo de lo Imposible” here: http://www.antxonarza.com/conductorTV.php