Mike Schultz lost his leg in a snowmobile race accident in 2008. Since then, he created a successful business making prosthetic legs and learned to snowboard so well that he’s about to compete in the 2018 Winter Paralympics.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Tomorrow the Winter Paralympic Games begin a 10-day run in South Korea featuring the world’s best athletes with disabilities. U.S. snowboarder Mike Schultz is a medal contender competing in his first Paralympics. And as NPR’s Tom Goldman reports, Schultz is helping others compete as well.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Close to 700 athletes are gathered in Pyeongchang for the Paralympics. They’ll take part in six sports, including alpine skiing, biathlon and snowboarding. Most of these athletes have dramatic stories to tell. Mike Schultz has one that’s hard to beat.

MIKE SCHULTZ: December 13, 2008 – yeah, that kind of changed everything a little bit.

GOLDMAN: Schultz, in his understated Minnesota kind of way, recounts the day he nearly died. He was at the time a top pro snowmobile racer nicknamed Monster Mike. But on that day at a race in Michigan, Schultz got bucked off his machine.

SCHULTZ: I landed on my left leg with all my weight.

GOLDMAN: The leg hyperextended at a horrifying angle.

SCHULTZ: Totally bent the wrong way. I kicked myself in the chin with my toe.

GOLDMAN: The accident severed an artery, and he nearly bled to death. Doctors had to amputate his left leg 3 inches above the knee. Mike Schultz had raced snowmobiles and dirt bikes since he was a teenager. Despite his injury, he wasn’t ready to give them up. But he knew he couldn’t get back to his beloved sports with his basic and clunky prosthetic walking leg.

SCHULTZ: Yeah, here’s the original drawings for the Versa Foot.

GOLDMAN: Schultz shows off the beginnings of what would end up changing his life and others, as he recounted in a 2016 appearance on “Conan.”

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “CONAN”)

SCHULTZ: I was in the garage fixing things, and I’m like, what better project than building your own leg? And…

(LAUGHTER)

CONAN O’BRIEN: You’re certainly motivated.

SCHULTZ: I was very, very motivated.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

GOLDMAN: He built a leg specifically for sport. The Versa Foot and Moto Knee gave Schultz all-important shock absorption and range of motion. Seven months after his injury, he won an X Games silver medal. In 2010, he started his company BioDapt to make his inventions available to other athletes, like Keith Deutsch.

SCHULTZ: For the purpose of this conversation, Sergeant retired Keith Deutsch.

GOLDMAN: Deutsch lost a leg in 2003 serving in Iraq. He’d been a snowboard instructor and raced in the sport. In 2011, in Colorado, he met Schultz, who lent him the Moto Knee to try.

KEITH DEUTSCH: It’s the most familiar I’ve felt since I lost my leg.

GOLDMAN: Deutsch was joyous. Schultz says giving Deutsch that moment was strong stuff. Their connection was significant for another reason. It got Schultz on a snowboard for the first time.

DEUTSCH: He’s not afraid of going fast. And he picked it up really quickly. The guys in the Olympics – what? – three, four, six years after he started.

GOLDMAN: Seven to be exact.

SCHULTZ: So I’m balancing on a round peg underneath the board. I’ve got a 12-pound medicine ball bouncing on the ground.

GOLDMAN: Schultz works out in a small gym adjacent to his office. It’s all part of a large converted storage shed where Schultz also makes his prosthetic devices. The shed is next to the house in St. Cloud that he shares with his wife and young daughter. One takes it all in – his business, his success in snowboarding – and you wonder. Was that horrible day in 2008 actually a good thing?

SCHULTZ: Not a day goes by my life where I don’t wish I could have my leg back. I wish I could grow my leg back today.

GOLDMAN: Schultz says all the success has been hard earned, and there have been failures along the way. And there are things people don’t see, like the time he was carrying his infant daughter at night and not wearing his prosthetic leg.

SCHULTZ: I tripped. And I had to chuck her across the room so she could land on the bed. Those are the moments I – that are real, you know? I can’t carry my daughter around without worrying about tripping, possibly injuring her.

GOLDMAN: Tomorrow, the public Mike Schultz will be on full display. He’s been chosen to carry the flag and lead the U.S. delegation at the Paralympics opening ceremony. Tom Goldman, NPR News.

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