Will to walk gets Bellevue man back on his feet

On March 7, 2001, Bruce Hanson, all 6 feet and 5 inches of him, found himself lying on his back in the snow at Alpental.

It was a clear and brilliant afternoon, and Hanson was supposed to be skiing the final run of the day with his 10-year-old daughter, Heather.

Instead of schussing down the slopes, his skis were above his head, aligned with the tops of the trees. Hanson remembers knowing that he’d broken his neck because he couldn’t feel his legs.

A doctor later told him that his injury resembled the kind once inflicted by the mafia — a partial severing of the spinal cord designed to maim, but not to kill. Continue Reading »