A sky-diving accident left Bernard Dime a double-leg amputee, and the deep depression that followed nearly swallowed the 30-year-old forever.
But with the help of friends and mentors, as well his devoted service dog, Corky, Dime is plowing headlong onto a pioneering path at Colorado State University. He just finished his first semester as the school’s first paraplegic veterinary student in its Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program.
The ambitious Dime knows he will face plenty of obstacles, including mobility problems and severe phantom nerve pain. But Dime, who pushed himself relentlessly before and after the February 2012 skydiving accident, brushes off notions of self-pity and looks to 5-year-old Corky for inspiration.
“This dog has brought such joy to my life,” said Dime, with Corky lying nearby and lifting his head slightly upon hearing his name. “You can learn a lot from animals in general. They just kind of roll with the punches.”
The black Lab, trained in 40 commands, is with Dime constantly. Corky helps take the edge off the tension in the classroom.
“He picks stuff up that I drop, carries stuff for me, opens doors,” Dime said. “I wish he could take tests for me.”
Officials at CSU were more than willing to accept Dime and to deal with any physical roadblocks to his learning head-on.
“I was thinking that doors to be lab would be problem, but they are not for him,” said Dr. Anna Fails, who teaches the demanding Functional Anatomy class that dominates CSU’s first-year curriculum. “I wanted to make it clear to him, man, we are seriously interested in removing physical obstacles, but we don’t know what they are. There’s going to be an enormous amount of adaptation. Fortunately, Bernard, being the person he is, was all in.”
When Dime completes his work at CSU, he may return the favor and help treat service animals that are hurt or sick for Canine Companions for Independence, the group that partnered him with Corky.
“I’m a realist. I’m probably not going to be an elephant vet just to prove I can do anything,” Dime said. “The most realistic thing is likely small-animal practice, but I’m also very interested in surgery.”
Dime volunteered at animal shelters when he was a boy growing up in San Diego. But other pursuits soon got his attention as he got older.
In his late teens, he was a guitarist in a touring band called The Real You, whose music was featured on MTV.
Then, he latched onto skydiving.
“I was obsessed with it,” Dime said. “And when I get onto something, I want to be the best at it. … There was just something about flying in a parachute and how it just becomes part of my body.”
He began training hard, with the idea of one day enlisting in the U.S. Army and becoming part of the elite Golden Knights Parachute Team.
He had notched 2,000 jumps before the accident in the Arizona desert. It was his third practice jump before a competition on Feb. 15, 2012. Something went wrong and he hit the ground, shattering his back.
He doesn’t remember the impact or much after that.
“I don’t remember the pain all that much, just brief moments lying on the ground and thinking I was going to die,” Dime said.
He was airlifted to a local hospital and learned he had burst-fractured the T12 and L1 vertebrae in his lower back and had suffered a spinal cord injury. He was permanently paralyzed and underwent surgical amputation of his legs.
“You crash, and then you wake up born again with a different body,” Dime said.
At the time, Dime fell into a deep depression when he thought about his future. It came knowing he was so close to a dream that he worked so hard for, only to be taken away.
“There were times I wished I was dead,” added Dime. “I thought, ‘My life is never going to be good again.’ That is rock-bottom. That’s a scary place.”
His youth and superb physical condition helps him recover physically. And a realization that he could shape his own future, despite his injury, helped him mentally. He said he felt “a little light inside of me, looking at recovery, then next step to fix this.”
Dime began his rehabilitation work at Neuroworx, a physical therapy clinic in Sandy, Utah, where he bonded with the founder, Dr. Dale Hull, an ob-gyn who was paralyzed after a spinal-cord injury.
“Bernard was pushing the limits, and suddenly his whole world was completely devastated,” Hull said. “You’re not normal if you don’t think about suicide. You have to go all the way to that perimeter, and he was willing to do that.”
Dime powered through rehabilitation and learned the basics — learning to shower, dress himself and how live in his own body.
Since then, Dime’s become an avid sit-skier and has taken part in multiple International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation development camps, in hopes of joining the USA Paralympic Bobsled Team if the sport makes the cut for the 2022 Winter Games.
He also earned his pilot license last summer through a scholarship from Bombardier and the nonprofit AbleFlight.
After earning his nutritional sciences degree from the University of Arizona, Dime decided to apply to veterinary school and jumped at the chance to attend CSU.
To relieve the pressure of sitting for 16-18 hours a day in his wheelchair, Dime keeps an air mattress in the lecture hall where Fails teaches so he can lie down when needed.
In the lab, he works with his partners at a chair-height table rather than a standing one.
Dime doesn’t necessarily see himself as a crusader, but he hopes his example will encourage others with spinal injuries to keep pursuing their ambitions.
“You may think some opportunities are out of reach for you if you are in a wheelchair,” Dime said. “A lot of kids dream of being a vet, and I want to show there’s a top-notch institution like Colorado State that is willing to take a chance and believe in you.”