LITTLE FALLS – Joey Evans had an insatiable dream – to one day ride in the Dakar Rally. This dream seemed all too possible until he was left paralysed from the chest down.
The second oldest in a family of six, Evans had put his wants on the backburner. So, at the rightful age of 26, he bought himself his first motocross bike.
“I always enjoyed bikes from when I was a child, so when I finally got my bike, I started with some motocross and some freestyle and then got into off-road racing.”
His dreams were slowly coming to fruition until he competed in a race that would change his life forever.
For Evans, 13 October 2007, was like any other race day – get on the bike, ride your best and come out victorious. He was riding the Heidelburg Hare Scramble and about 100m into the race he was involved in a crash.
“The track started to turn when a guy went into the back of me in that first corner and other riders rode over me.”
The crash broke his T8 and T9 vertebrae and he was left unconscious for a while due to head trauma. He explained that when he came to he started coughing out what he thought was sand when it actually was the shattered remnants of 12 of his teeth. Through all the pandemonium, Evans realised that he could not feel his legs.
After months of numerous surgeries and hospital beds, the Dakar dreamer found a flicker of hope while at Muelmed Pretoria. Within a few days, Evans felt a little tinge in his big right toe.
“This gave us a tiny bit of hope as we had been told I was paralysed and that was it.”
After doctors operated on him to fuse his T8 and T9 vertebrates they gave him a 10 per cent chance of walking again but that didn’t stop him. As the years passed and he slowly came to walk again, he decided to ride again. He explained that his first ride after the accident, though scary, was freeing.
Evans cannot run or jump, he cannot feel heat or cold or pain sensations below his chest, he does not have proper bowel and bladder control, and he does not sweat below his chest – yet he kept going.
In July last year, the Dakar Rally accepted Evans’s entry. His dream had come true. At the end, he was placed 93rd overall.
He hoped that his four daughters would take from him the desire to follow their dreams and stick it out through the challenges. Evans also praised his wife for her unyielding support, even when she might not have understood his reasoning.
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