His willpower took him through college and he admitted that the early steps of the process were marked by “little victories” that meant a lot, given the circumstances he faced.
“I went through my college years. I drove the wheelchair around school and all that stuff, and I just wanted to get better so badly that I thought, ‘What can I do to walk again?’” Hammel recalled. “We started finding leg braces that would work and I started using crutches — the Canadian crutches that attach to your forearms — and just slowly got to where I could stand up.
“Taking one or two steps … it was like the most liberating thing in my life. You know, most people get up and they’re tired and they’re like, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to get out of bed.’ But for me, to stand up and get out of bed, I was doing jumping jacks in my mind, you know? It was crazy cool.”
Eventually, not only was Hammel able to walk again, but he was able to compete in the 2009 X Games after earning a gold medal during the 2009 Motocross Extremity Games.
“It was about the mentality for me. I wanted to be better; I wanted to do well and perform again,” Hammel explained. “If you ask guys like Travis Pastrana and different people like that, a lot of them will tell you that they just want to be better all the time. … They think about winning first, they think about being a champion and they think about how much better they can be at doing what they want to do and what they love.
“That kind of drive is what I found and it’s what kept me going when I needed that extra push forward.”
Though he had a long road back, Hammel says the journey was one “filled with tests of strength.
“I’ve always had the strength and the mindset to never give up and to always be better, but I think it also comes back to being young,” Hammel explained. “I was 19 when it happened, so I was a little naïve and maybe I didn’t understand the actual, really intense portion of the situation.
“I thought, ‘Eh, whatever they’re telling me, I don’t want to listen to them,’ like the typical teenager and that gave me the opportunity to kinda just bypass them and say, ‘No, you know, I don’t believe you. You’re not right. I’m going to be able to do it my way.’
“That’s what gave me the strength to be able to do it and come back from everything they said I couldn’t come back from,” he continued. “I didn’t understand how big of a journey it was going to be, I just knew I wasn’t going to quit.”
After his X Games appearance, Hammel returned to motocross training, but broke his back for the third time in a 2010 training accident.
While neurosurgeon Dr. Eric Sipos was able to rebuild Hammel’s burst T11 vertebrae without having to insert extra metal or fusions, avoiding any interference with the previous 1998 surgeries, Hammel was told he would be unable to return to motocross because of the weakness of the vertebrae.
Hammel turned down a different path and strengthened his focus on road bicycle riding, competing on bikes without any modifications and racing in both the 111-mile El Tour De Tucson and the Ironman 70.3 California in 2012 and ’13, respectively.
That road brought back Hammel’s competitive edge with full force.
“Man, I’m a competitor. I always have been,” said Hammel. “After the X Games, I was training to be better at dirt bike racing again, but when I ended up breaking my back the third time and the doctor said if I did any more damage to it that it wouldn’t be repairable, I made a conscious decision to look into the off-road racing stuff and said, ‘OK, well I’m not going to be able to afford this, so what am I going to do?’
“That’s when I thought, ‘OK, well I’ll start riding bicycles and making an impact, and hopefully I can show people what’s possible and that even if you have setbacks, you can achieve your goals as long as you try hard.’”
Being successful in the discipline of cycling powered Hammel’s journey and fueled his internal fire to chase an even bigger platform from which to share his message.
After success cycling and once the proper funding materialized, Hammel returned to professional motorsports in off-road trucks, eventually working his way up into the premier Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series.
In 2017, Hammel competed in the Production 1000 class, finishing 16th in points despite only running a partial schedule and spreading the message that the safety of the discipline and its cars allow him to continue to compete at a high level despite his past challenges.
Hammel’s highest finish of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series season, a seventh-place result, came at Nevada’s Wild West Motorsports Park in the 10th round of 13. But he claims that despite his nature as a racer, it’s not just the numerical results that are his ultimate goal.
In the end, his mission is about continually inspiring others.
“Being paralyzed or disabled can be one of the most difficult things for any human to endure,” Hammel admitted. “Many are forced to live life in wheelchairs, needing assistance on a daily basis. I was one of the lucky ones. I was given a miracle and was able to partially recover from a severe spinal cord injury after seven years in a wheelchair and going through a lot of rehab.
“I try to share my story wherever I go, so that I can help inspire and show people that with hard work, dedication and medical technology, life doesn’t slow down. Instead, you can have just as much happiness and fulfillment as any able-bodied human being.
“My journey has been filled with many highs and just as many lows, but through it all, I continue to be amazed what the human body can overcome. I try to tell people wherever I go that they can achieve the impossible, just like I have,” Hammel noted. “It’s a special feeling.”
