NEWARK, N.Y. – Tanner LaMagna, a 12-year-old boy from Newark, is receiving an outpouring of support from around the world after breaking his neck in a BMX bike race in Jamestown, New York on July 13. He is now at the Shepherd Center, a spine hospital in Atlanta.
“And we ran right out and I was holding his hand and I told him ‘Don’t move. Whatever you do, don’t move,’” said David LaMagna, Tanner’s father, who was sitting just feet from the race track when his son crashed. “But then I was holding his hand in the hospital, and I said ‘move.’”
In a video from Tanner’s hospital bedside posted to Facebook, David asked Tanner, “Can you go like this again? No? Can’t do it?”
“Give him a minute,” his mother Tara said.
Then Tanner moved his hand and arm.
“Good boy,” David said.
“And it’s such a change and he was able to spin his arm, lift his arm, and it’s such a relief that he’s got something,” David said.
The same thing happened with his mother Tara.
“Try to move your arm again buddy like you just did. Try to do it again,” Tara is heard saying in the video from the hospital room.
Tanner moved his hand again.
“I’m so proud of you!” Tara whispered.
Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “What did that do for you?”
Tara LaMagna: “Oh, that was such a huge moment. That sense of hope that he will be able to gain feeling back as much as he can.”
Moments after the crash, Tanner was flown 147 miles from the track in Jamestown to Strong Hospital in Rochester for an 8-hour surgery. Twelve days later, a private jet took him to the spine center in Atlanta.
The “Tanner Strong” Facebook page created and managed by his mother documents the community reaction including cards, posters, visits and videos from friends and some of the top BMXers in the world.
“Hey Tanner, Barry Nobles here,” said Nobles, a decorated BMXer, in a video posted to Facebook. “I know you’re a strong hard working BMXer and you can work hard from this. It’s going to be a long road and you’re not going to be back on your bike tomorrow but you have to stay positive.”
Tanner also got a message from Sam Willoughby, an Australian BMXer and Olympic medalist who suffered a spinal injury during a training run.
“I know what you’re going through right now and it’s not easy,” Willoughby said in a video message. “But I promised you that it will improve.”
Willoughby told Tanner that “the process is the progress.”
The support is also evident at the track in Newark with T-shirt sales saying “Tanner Strong.”
“When the accident happened, I had people reach out to me right away – what is it that we can do? What can we do? What can we do?” said Stephanie Liechti, who owns the track with her husband Brian.
“I keep telling Tanner about all the outpouring of support and he’s like ‘for me? For me?’ I said ‘yes for you! You are very well loved,’” Tara said. “So many people are following you’ and he’s such a story of hope.”
The community raised $27,000 in two weeks.
“Hi everyone. Thank you so much for the support,” Tanner said in a video from the hospital.
Tanner’s father and older brother Dominic joined his mother Tara at the hospital in Atlanta over the weekend.
Tanner gets hours of therapy every day. Over the weekend, he had a serious fever but his mother told the Facebook community that it has lowered and he is weaning off a ventilator.
Tanner loves the outdoors including fishing, snowboarding, hunting and biking.
Now every little move is huge.
“We’ll figure out a way to do all of those things still. It’s just complicated,” David said.
“So that is one thing that we are so hopeful for because of his mindset and determination we believe that he is going to be able to do anything he wants to do,” Tara said. “It might look a little different down the road but he’s definitely going to be able to do those things he loves to do again.”
Tanner was wearing every piece of equipment a racer can wear including a neck brace. More than 3 million children are injured in sports every year in this country. Studies by the National Institutes for Health say the sports with the most number of spinal injuries are football, diving and bicycling. Bicycling accounts for 11% of all spinal injuries.
AI assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News 10 uses AI
The post 12-year-old BMX racer Tanner LaMagna receives global support after breaking neck in race appeared first on WHEC.com.
