With help from The Heroes Project, injured veterans are reaching new heights.
Tim Medvetz was always an adrenaline chaser. In 1998, he rode his chopper from his hometown in New Jersey to his chosen home, Los Angeles, where he became a member of the notorious Hells Angels and set off on worldwide travels. But on September 10, 2001, everything changed.
“I was riding my motorcycle at over 100mph through the city streets of LA, hit a pick-up truck, and was lights out,” he says. “I woke up the next morning and saw all the nurses and doctors staring at the television. I couldn’t speak because I had tubes down my throat, but as I focused my eyes on the screen, I saw the Twin Towers come down.”
Having broken nearly every bone in his body, Medvetz began the long process of rehabilitation. For someone who was used to being constantly on the move, having to spend six months in a wheelchair before gradually moving to crutches was a mental and physical struggle.
“It was all this negativity surrounding me, with the message of: ‘Just feel lucky you’re alive.’ But that just wasn’t good enough for me.”
The answer, it turned out, was Mount Everest. Sitting on his couch in his Hollywood apartment, relying on pain medications and alcohol, Medvetz happened upon a book about a climb of the Earth’s highest mountain and decided this was the challenge that would get his life back on track. A month later, he’d sublet his place in Hollywood and get a one-way ticket to Nepal, where for four years he immersed himself in the Sherpa culture, trained and — having never climbed a mountain before — reached the top of Everest.
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But this was only the start of Medvetz’s journey. Back in his Hollywood apartment, he saw a Veterans Day news broadcast, and seeing injured veterans step up to the mic and share their stories struck a chord.
“A lightbulb lit up and I thought, maybe I have something to offer these guys,” he says.
This is how The Heroes Project was born. The drive that had pushed Medvetz from a hospital bed to the world’s highest peak motivated him to start his own non-profit. With help from the partners who’d sponsored his Everest climb, including Equinox, Medvetz set to work training injured veterans to complete transformative climbs of the world’s most challenging mountains, with rigorous training and support every step of the way.
Corporal Kionte Storey is one of the veterans who has experienced this firsthand. The California native had joined the Marines a few weeks after graduating high school. Just under three years later, Storey was out on patrol in Afghanistan when he was hit by an IED that severed his right leg below the knee and caused compartment syndrome and nerve damage in his left.
“I was walking six months after my injury, and running within a year,” says Storey. “But the mental recovery took years. I was trying to find something to ease my frustration with losing my leg and I was going down a dark path, abusing my pain medication. I quit cold turkey, and began pursuing sports as a way for me to prove to myself that life still goes on.”
Storey had already undertaken numerous sports, from track races to snowboarding, when he met Mark Zambon, an ambassador for The Heroes Project who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He encouraged Storey that he should do his own climb, and in January 2013 he climbed Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica.
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“Halfway up, it became more of a mental battle. I was exhausted, each step was draining. It had been a personal mission, but then it became about something bigger than me — I wanted to do it for all the others who I could inspire by finishing,” he shares. “I knew it could be seen by so many other people and show that we have to keep moving forward, we have to keep fighting.”
Today, Storey sees the experience as one that transformed his life.
“When I made it to the summit, it opened my eyes to the fact that anything is possible if you put in the time and energy. Today, I’m at school getting my Bachelor’s and I’m trying to get into a doctorate program for physical therapy so I can help other people. I have my purpose, and I have the mentality of knowing that I can see it through.”
Storey is one of many veterans that returns to meet up with The Heroes Project community at its annual Climb for Heroes event, where they’re joined by supporters of every fitness level to climb Mount Baldy, California, their local training grounds. For those who can’t make it to California, there’s the opportunity to participate in the climb virtually, completing the same distance in your own neighborhood. This year’s climb is dedicated to raising funds for California's first Veteran Retreat Center, which will enable The Heroes Project to bring veterans from across the nation to train for an expedition, empowering the organization to grow this incredible community.
“They can get inspired by seeing us tackle this mountain with our various injuries, and to inspire others is truly such a great feeling,” says Storey.
