In the hours after a motorcycle race crash left John Beal paralyzed from a broken neck, the big question was whether he would even survive. Then when his condition stabilized, the question became whether he would ever move his arms and legs again, and ultimately be able to live a normal life.
But within a year after his accident, and by that time having regained almost full function in all his limbs, the question changed once more. To the surprise of his doctors and many people around him, Beal was asking if he could race again.
Told that his risk of injury was no different than before the 2004 accident, “that was kind of a green light to me,” said the 36-year-old Beal, who lives in Snohomish.
So he resumed racing, and on Saturday night he was at Everett’s Xfinity Arena for a major EnduroCross event with top-ranked riders from around the world. He finished back in the field, but just being there was an accomplishment of sorts — albeit an accomplishment with a new question.
After all, why would someone get back on a motorcycle after the sport nearly made him spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair?
A good question, Beal admits, and one he answers this way: “If there’s something in life that you’re passionate about, whether it’s motocross or whatever it is, it’s just part of your personality. And if you give it up, it conflicts with who you are as a person.”
A return to racing “was an opportunity for me to bounce back,” he added. “It gave me the motivation to heal up and to be an athlete again and to continue on with my life. I think that was as big a part of this as anything.”
Beal started racing motorcycles while a student at Snohomish High School. After his 1998 graduation, “I decided I was going to pursue my racing dreams,” he said. “I decided I was going to give it a go, and when I was 19 I started traveling the country and the world … (racing in) the amateur and professional ranks.”
He also began competing in longer off-road events “because I excelled at those more than I did the motocross. … I was making some money and kind of doing my thing,” he said.
But on July 15, 2004, just short of his 25th birthday, Beal was racing at Hannagan Speedway in Bellingham. A crash sent him flying over the handlebars, as happens to even the best riders from time to time, and as had happened to Beal before.
But this night he landed on his head, “and I was instantly paralyzed from the neck down,” he said. “I wasn’t moving. I was just laying there, staring at the sky.”
Beal was fortunate that an emergency vehicle was close by, and he was soon on his way to Bellingham’s St. Joseph Medical Center. Physicians familiar with spinal cord injuries immediately set about reducing the swelling in his neck — “That gives you a much higher probability that you’re going to walk again, and even to live,” Beal said — and he then underwent nine hours of surgery, during which his C4, C5 and C6 vertebrae were fused.
Mike Hurlbert of Lynden, who owned the racing team Beal was part of, recalls the terrible uncertainty of the next few days. “It was so bad at first,” he said. “I remember being with him in his hospital room. His lips were really chapped and I remember rubbing ice cubes on them because he couldn’t move.”
But then one day about a week later “he wiggled a toe,” Hurlbert said. “And the day after that he wiggled a finger.”
“I was starting to get some feeling back, and then I started to get more,” Beal said. “But it was a lot of hard work (in rehab) to get myself back to being a normal human being again.”
Today there are few lingering effects from his accident, other than a significant sensitivity to heat and cold. “In the winter, if I get cold in my hands and arms it’s kind of painful,” he said. “And if grab something hot, I don’t always recognize that it’s hot.”
Also, he added, “there’s a lot of hardware (i.e., metal plates and screws) in my neck. I actually have a pretty neat x-ray hanging in my house.”
Beal returned to racing in 2005 and competed for the next five years. He then left the sport, largely for career and financial reasons, but decided to return earlier this year. He now competes mostly around the Pacific Northwest.
“I’ve been enjoying it and I’ve been successful, and now I’m collecting people back into my support network,” he said, referring to sponsors.
These days racing is mostly a hobby for Beal, who owns two Snohomish farms — Woodland Meadow Farms and Dairyland — where guests can buy chickens, eggs, hops and Christmas trees, and hold special events such as weddings. He is also a landscaping contractor.
But through it all, his love for racing motorcycles is undiminished.
“At this point in my career, I’m 10 years older than everybody else on the track that’s competing at my level,” he said. “I’ve also been injured and there’s a lot of other things that have happened in my life to this point. But I’m doing it because I want to do it, and I still go out there with a smile on my face.”
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