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From Nearly Dying to Paralympic Gold: The Secret of How to Overcome
An explosion took a Navy lieutenant’s eyesight but turbocharged his life
Brad Snyder and guide Greg Billington react as they cross the finish line to win the gold medal during the men's PTVI Triathlon during the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
“I thought I had died,” said Brad Snyder, looking back on September 7, 2011, when he was a Navy lieutenant and bomb disposal officer deep in the mountains of Afghanistan.
He was clearing a path through a ravine to evacuate wounded troops when an Improvised Explosive Device blew up in his face. He was alive, but blinded for life.
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Fast forward to today, and the 40 year old is in his fourth year at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He is due to complete his doctoral dissertation on military ethics next year, when he hopes to land a faculty position at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Oh, and he has six gold and two silver medals won in three separate Paralympics and holds the world record for the 100-meter freestyle. He is now a father and realizes “that being a dad trumps everything else.”
So how did he emerge from his lowest point? “I didn't know anything about how to do any of the stuff I used to do, from brushing my teeth to eating my food to picking out what to wear,” he told AARP Experience Counts.
Brad Snyder trains for a spot on Team USA to compete at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
Business Wire/AP Photo
He started from scratch using a process that he calls “Tap, advance.” He explained: “You tap your cane in front of you in the spot that your next foot is going to go. So, I'm clearing that area for obstacles. And once I kind of tap, I know that the space is clear for my right foot and then I'm going to tap where my left foot is going to go.”
Tap, advance is the way he has taken on every challenge since.
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He had been a competitive swimmer as a midshipman at Annapolis, so it made sense to get back into the water. “Going into the pool, I could see the value I still had. I started from the ground up when I was 11 years old, I knew nothing about competitive swimming.
“First, it was just to get me out of the hospital, and then it was, like, let me make sure I make the most of this opportunity that's ahead of me … to continue on in any capacity was really kind of spectacular and something I was grateful for.”
After seven Paralympics medals in 2012 and 2016, Snyder took a big leap at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2020 by competing in his first triathlon and the first Paralympics triathlon that included blind athletes.
With his wife, Sara, by his side during training sessions almost every day, and with his guide partner and experienced triathlon athlete, Greg Billington, Snyder found out just how difficult it was to do a triathlon blind.
“It's hard to figure out how to stay parallel to Greg in the water. It’s really scary to jump on the back of a tandem bike. On the flip side, though, it's extremely difficult [for Greg] to guide the bike into our transition area so that we hop on and don't lose any speed to navigate that bike course at 30 to 50 miles an hour.”
It was all worth it when he won Gold. “To come across the line together made it more special than any of the other preceding races that I had won,” he recalled.
A volunteer taps Brad Snyder to signal the approaching wall for a turn during the U.S. Paralympics Team Trials in 2016.
Chuck Burton/AP Photo
Medical retirement from the Navy was another huge challenge. "It's really difficult to have confidence in who you are outside of the military, but sports allows you to start to do that,” he said.
“Blindness and the injury are no longer a long shadow over my life. If I look at the whole journey, I think the one thing I'm trying to do is be an inspiration for other people, to say, ‘I know, I get it, I've been there.’
“You tap, then you advance. It comes out of my experiences as a blind person, but it’s universally applicable. You learn how to approach those problems in bite-sized chunks and work your way up.”
Britain's Prince Harry, right, applauds after passing the torch to U.S. Navy Lt. Brad Snyder, center, at the opening ceremony of the Warrior Games in 2013. At left is four-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Missy Franklin. The Warrior Games is a Paralympic-style competition featuring injured servicemen and women from the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Rick Wilking/REUTERS
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