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KATE SADOWKSY
"Living Fully Extends Life"
Trying to catch a few hours of sleep, while suspended 600 feet in the air next to a granite wall, can be a challenge. You nurse your aching muscles and scraped bones while hoping that you’ve checked your gear thoroughly before leaving the horizontal plane and heading up the cliff. Brad Zdanivsky, however, has even higher stakes. Despite numerous odds, and with only the use of his shoulders and biceps, he recently became the first quadriplegic to climb the granite face of the Stawamus Chief in British Columbia.
Describing Brad as "goal-oriented" would be an understatement; he sets his sights on the tops of mountains and doesn’t look away. He admits that his stubbornness was one of the primary factors in his recovery when he was faced with what he termed as a "sink or swim moment" after a car accident left him largely paralyzed with a C5 spinal cord injury in 1994. Post-accident, Brad spent almost a full year in the hospital and rehabilitation. Feeling fragile and weak, his daily list of accomplishments was topped with lifting grapes to his mouth.
Why Would I Want to Finger Paint?
As Brad began moving again, this time in a wheelchair, he felt driven by a huge sense of injustice. This was not due to his new circumstances of being wheelchair-bound, but that the two options he was offered as a quadriplegic were finger painting or rugby. Were there no other choices or pathways for quad? Since childhood, Brad  had been a climber and even as a quadriplegic, Brad is a climber. So while he had returned to his studies of computer science, his desire for the adventure and challenge of mountain climbing had not been stunted by his changed body.
Brad and his father, George, began adapting equipment in order to rappel downward on the cliffs. Awkward yet enjoyable, it wasn’t long before Brad became dissatisfied simply rappelling and set the goal of climbing the Stawamus Chief in British Columbia, Canada. It was a goal that would take seven years to achieve and a lot of learning about teamwork, patience, duct tape, and the challenges of a quadriplegic body.
It’s hard to get a good workout as a quadriplegic: there are complex physical issues, such as the lack of function in the sympathetic nervous system and autonomic dysflexia.This means that Brad’s body is always trying to bring him back into parasympathetic response or "rest" mode and is unable to regulate heartbeat, blood pressure or temperature. This creates strict limitations on exercise, as a quadriplegic’s body isn’t able to respond accordingly to the physical exertion being placed upon it. A quadriplegic’s blood pressure can rise quickly leading to stroke or seizure, and even seemingly minor injuries such as sunburn or bone fracture can be life-threatening. But while
finger painting may be a safer option for his body, Brad’s chosen mode of expression lines elsewhere.
Even as a Quad, You Can Climb
Brad describes climbing as an expression of who he is. When asked what he loves about it, he comments: "You share an adventure with a group of good friends. It doesn’t get much better than that." An extreme sports enthusiast does not stop being an extreme sports enthusiast simply because his body changes. As Brad recalls overhearing a walking paraplegic in the rehabilitation center complaining about his life, Brad comments that we’re really the same people before and after an event, the same personality follows us whether we’re healthy or sick, walking or rolling.
His four doctors think he’s a bit much, and one of them comments that she advised him to find a form of exercise closer to the ground. But Brad seems more than content to be his own guinea pig and proclaims that living fully extends life. He knows well the constraints of his body, and strives to expand his capacity through the development of new technologies that can improve his performance. Brad is currently testing new devices to be able to raise and lower his own blood pressure, none of which sound particularly enjoyable, and trying to get a pacemaker that can be controlled through an iPhone. He continues to be enthusiastic and driven: learning, creating, testing new ideas and gear.
Brad knows that each day his physical capacity will be a bit different; each day is hit-or-miss. If he wakes up with spasticity, he knows it’s a day to stay home, work on some sketches and adjustments for the rig, and not a day to spend at the gym. Brad says he has learned not to force things he shouldn’t force and simply make a different plan.
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