MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

87 words :: Brian Hockenstein Pants or shorts? For most, it’s a simple morning decision, usually based on the weather outside, but for 31-year-old Tyler Turner it’s the difference between a regular day or having everyone he encounters stare at him like a human anomaly. Turner is a double amputee—he lost both legs below the knee after a skydiving accident in 2017—and on “shorts days” he draws a lot of attention. It’s hard not to notice the dude with two robot legs, and the biggest smile in the room. “The crown jewels,” Turner says as he pulls one particularly future-tech looking set of prosthetics from a selection of six different pair in the back of his SUV. “The BioDapt VF2, the second generation of the Versa Foot. They are so cool it’s not even funny—they’ve got FOX racing shocks in them, with crazy amounts of adjustments available. I don’t have to pull out tools, it’s just click-click-click on these little dials and I can add more knee flexion, whatever I want. These are going to allow me to snowboard again.” The idea of snowboarding again is one of the reasons Turner is smiling these days. Another reason is because he’s just that kind of guy, the sort who won’t let something like losing both his legs hinder his goals for the future. Born and raised in Calgary and trained as a photographer in his early 20s, Turner spent the decade prior to his accident leading one of those enchanted lifestyles that makes for an inspiring Instagram feed: surfing, snowboarding, backcountry guiding, driving snowcats, rock climbing, skateboarding—and a newly-discovered passion for skydiving that led him to Victoria, BC to work as an instructor and airborne photographer. And then, one day, it all came crashing down. Literally. “The last thing I remember is opening my parachute, looking down and seeing where I was—just doing the exact same thing I’d done a hundred times before.” Turner says. “It was nothing aggressive.” But something happened. Turner thinks it was likely a partial wing collapse as he performed PROFILE Tyler Turner lost both his legs, but it’s what he gained that matters "My first time back on a skateboard, two years post-accident, with the help of the new VF2 feet." KAYLEEN VANDEREE “ I don’t want to show up for a participation ribbon, I wanna crush.”