ST. GEORGE — On the crisp morning of Jan. 16, 2006, Matt Blanchard’s life took an unexpected turn on a rain-soaked road.

Blanchard, a 30-year-old electrical contractor at the time, began his journey across St. George to pick up one of his employees, Brett Bastrop.

Distracted and in a hurry, he didn’t buckle his seat belt.

“Brett jumped in the cab of my truck, pointed at me and said ‘Matt, put your seat belt on,’” Blanchard told St. George News.

But being young and feeling invincible, Blanchard said, he ignored him.

On their drive to Cedar City, the rainy weather soon turned to snow. And for a second time, Bastrop told Blanchard to buckle up.

“I gave him all the reasons why I didn’t need to wear a seat belt,” Blanchard said. “I’m 6 foot 2, 215 pounds; a mountain of muscle in the best shape of my life. I said ‘Brett, I’m your boss. I’m 30. You’re 19. Don’t tell me what to do.’”

Then, the snow turned into complete whiteout conditions. This time Bastrop begged Blanchard: put on your seat belt.

For a third time, Blanchard said no.

Then his truck lost control on the icy road.

“My tires caught the snow and my truck launched into the air and landed on the driver’s side door,” he said. “Then it started a second rotation, throwing my body all throughout the cabin.”

His back went through the steering column, and everything went black.

He awakened to a terrifying realization that would change the course of his life forever.

“I realized the reason why I couldn’t see anything was that my hips were now covering my face,” he said.

Blanchard pushed the debris away and his knees flopped over one another.

Bastrop was buckled in next to him. Blanchard said he knew immediately what had happened.

“I said, ‘Brett, I’m paralyzed.’”

It took emergency crews over two hours to reach Blanchard on the icy roads, he said, and then he was airlifted to Cedar City Hospital. Two surgeries, titanium rods, screws, and a reconstructed vertebra later, Blanchard found himself in a battle against his own body.

He was reluctant to accept help and spiraled into a dark, emotional place. He was in excruciating pain. At first, he struggled to even put his socks on without help.

However, a pivotal moment occurred when his dad visited him in the hospital.

Blanchard recalled his father’s words: “Matt, we can all quit. But do you have it in you to dig in, dig deep and get it done?”

The journey to recovery was grueling, marked by small victories and setbacks. But Blanchard had a goal in mind: to someday walk his daughter down the aisle.

He said he defied his doctor’s expectations and relearned basic tasks, inching closer to his goal of walking on his own.

He was walking with hand crutches seven months out from his daughter’s upcoming wedding. Overjoyed, he realized he was going to be able to walk her down the aisle.

“We even got the daddy-daughter dance dialed in; standing and twirling and all these things,” he said.

But seven months before the wedding, disaster struck a second time when Blanchard got into another car crash: a head-on collision on Feb. 12, 2021 with a drunk driver thrust him into paralysis for the second time.

Again, he tried to clear himself from the wreckage.

“I remember I tried to push down through my legs to get myself back up on the seat, but I couldn’t,” he said.

“I had my seat belt on,” he said.

But his body was shattered.

“I broke my femur,” he said. “I broke my tib-fib, there was a compound fracture in my left foot. I broke my back again and I was paralyzed for a second time. Those 15 years of therapy every single day? They were taken from me again in the blink of an eye.”

A few years before the second crash, he had a realization one day that the medicine he’d been using was a way to hide from not only his physical pain but his emotional pain, too.

“My little girl is in the backseat — she’s 12 years old at the time — and she asked my wife, she’s like, Hey, Mom, what are all those pills? That dad takes, you know?” he said.

Blanchard, who was sitting in the front seat, said he was high from his pills.

“I didn’t like that after five years I was still in a wheelchair,” he said.

Worried that his pre-teen children could get into his stash, Blanchard decided to quit cold turkey.

Despite his doctor’s orders to use suboxone or methadone to ease the withdrawal, Blanchard decided to do it his own way.

With opiates still in his system, he made it through the first day. After a sleepless night, Blanchard began the painful process of withdrawal.

He did everything he could to distract himself from the symptoms of withdrawal.

“It feels like you’ve got bugs under your skin,” he said. “I’ve scratched myself, I’ve got scars, pulled out hair, I punched holes in walls.”

Blanchard had been in two major car crashes but his seven-day battle with opiate withdrawal was the most pain he had ever experienced, he said.

“Coming off of opiates is the most hellacious thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, bar none,” he said. “Paralysis is a distant second relating to opiate withdrawal.”

But Blanchard was able to dig in, dig deep, and get it done.

Blanchard said that all of his experiences have made him grow as a person and helped him learn that nothing is guaranteed in life. Paralysis has served him, he says.

“It taught me to be present,” he said.” This moment, right now, is the most important moment in my life. Because I’m not guaranteed to get home, I’m not even guaranteed to get out that door.”

Blanchard has found his groove in life and is now a motivational speaker in the midst of touring the local schools and also is an adjunct professor for Utah Tech University in the anatomy lab.

“I appreciate my wife more, my kids are more empathetic,” he said.

He also appreciates paralysis.

“It’s really a gift. Paralysis has allowed me to become the man I was always supposed to be. The husband, the father, the brother,” he said.

He didn’t get to walk his daughter down the aisle, but the daddy-daughter dance was still “badass,” he said.

Blanchard now runs a nonprofit called “Today’s First Step” where he helps people suffering from deficits. He helps them get equipment and resources to make their lives easier.

“Whether that be hand controls for a car, or anything, we provide that,” he said. “Everybody needs help getting their socks on.”

Blanchard can be reached for public speaking here or found on Facebook.

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