US biker, paralysed in an accident, adopts adaptive motocross for a comeback ride

Picchione embraces the challenge of adaptive motocross after a life-changing accident. Photos: Instagram/Anthony Picchione

The tattoo etched across Anthony Picchione’s left arm reveals fragments of his life before and after the motocross accident that altered his racing days.

The tattoo’s design features a clock with the hands pointed at six and four, mirroring Picchione’s former racing number, 64. There’s a lion in the design to represent strength and ferocity, and near the image of a spinal cord is the adage: “Everything happens for a reason.”

The 21-year-old from New Milford, Connecticut in the United States started competitively racing dirt bikes when he was five.

He was working toward earning his professional motocross license when his days of competitive racing were cut short on Nov 26, 2021.

Picchione’s promising future in motorsports was abruptly halted by an accident, leaving him paralysed.

An accident severed his spinal cord and rendered him paralysed from the waist down.

Immediately after the accident, as he underwent rehab at Gaylord Speciality Healthcare, Picchione said he wanted nothing to do with motocross.

“I was kind of ‘I’d rather be a fan’, but I didn’t want to ride. I didn’t want to end up back in the hospital and go through this again.”

However, a week after the anniversary of his accident, Picchione found himself back on the bike again through MotoDemption, non-profit organisation dedicated to making motocross “a reality for those with physical disabilities by providing the bikes, adaptations, instructors and resources for safe and fun riding,” according to the MotoDemption website.

“It’s completely different. It doesn’t really matter how good or bad I do as long as I have fun,” said Picchione, who graduated from high school in 2020.

Defying all the odds

Picchione was 19 and he was only on the bike for 30 seconds when the accident happened.

He was racing in the Mini O’s competition in Gainesville, Florida, and had gone around the first turn when his bike hit a patch of dirt, flipping him over the handlebars.

The accident left Picchione with three broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured spine and a severed spinal cord. He remembers lying on the ground before he was put in a back brace and neck brace and loaded into the back of an ambulance.

Picchione's aspirations to become a motocross journalist demonstrates his continued love for the sport.

“I was yelling and screaming, I ripped the neck brace off,” Picchione said. Picchione said he doesn’t remember a specific moment when he was told he had a T-5 injury – an injury in the thoracic region of the spine at the fifth vertebra.

After returning to his New Milford home in January 2022, Picchione did outpatient therapy for more than a year at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare where he was able to walk in a bionic exoskeleton.

“One thing I tried to do every day is get out of the house once a day, which I think helped me. It’s almost like racing dirt bikes – it’s hard to get down with what’s wrong when your mind is focused on something else,” he said.

Another chance to ride again

Picchione’s passion for motocross took root at a young age, starting with his first dirt bike ride when he was four.

His brother, Dominick Picchione III, 26, also rode dirt bikes while his father was an expert motocross rider from the 1970s through 2011.

Growing up, Picchione raced throughout the spring, summer and fall and then traveled with his family in their motor home to Florida in the winter where he continued to practice riding. He competed in hundreds of races in 20 to 25 states.

At 17, Picchione qualified for the 2020 Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship where he was recognised as the top 42nd nationally ranked rider in his skill level. He said he was an amateur rider at the time of his accident.

That love of motocross was renewed after he watched the annual Supercross Anaheim race in California on TV, Picchione said.

He was connected to MotoDemption co-founder Davey Gonzales through a mutual friend and applied for an all-expenses-paid trip to ride of the organisation’s adaptive dirt bikes.

He had to wait a year after his injury – per MotoDemption policy – before making the trip.

Despite his injury, Picchione is slowly reclaiming his passion for motocross.“I said ‘I don’t care if I have to push my wheelchair to California to ride again’.

“I think I wanted redemption. If I got another chance to ride again, I didn’t want to have a jaded perspective,” Picchione recalled saying after Gonzales called him about the opportunity.

The adaptive bikes were similar to normal dirt bikes, he said, but with a larger seat, more foam and padding, electronic shifts, and a rear brake on the handlebars.

Picchione recalled feeling at ease the moment he settled into the bike, and the return of “that free feeling” he got from riding.

Dominick Picchione Jr said he lost “a big part of my life” after his son’s accident.

“Anytime something bad happens to your family, you try to look for explanations and you say to yourself, ‘I introduced him to riding and if I didn’t introduce him to riding, he wouldn’t have crashed.”

Picchione Jr said there were mixed emotions when he saw his son get back on the bike.

“I think for both me and my wife, just to see him, there was the fear of ‘Oh God, I don’t want anything to happen to him’ to seeing how excited he was to get back to what he loved doing.”

An interesting perspective

Apart from riding adaptive dirt bikes, Picchione hopes to participate in the Gaylord Gauntlet 5K & Obstacle Race in June. Proceeds from the event benefit the various programs for patients and the community at Gaylord as well as the Gaylord Sports Association which provides adaptive sports for people with physical disabilities.

Picchione’s inspiring story shows that determination knows no bounds.Meanwhile, his ride to redemption has inspired a new passion for becoming a motocross journalist.

“It’s definitely what motivates me from day to day. I think I have an interesting perspective being so young and what I’ve been through.”

Picchione started writing and put out his first article through Keefer, Inc. Testing, a motocross news website in last May. He said Kris Keefer, who started Keefer, Inc. Testing, worked as a professional dirt bike tester for motocross companies and now offers private dirt bike tests and publishes articles and podcasts related to motocross.

“He’s allowed me to use his platform to put my work out,” he said, adding he’s published six to seven articles through Keefer’s website.

Picchione said he’d like to have his work published in magazines as a way to entertain people and reintroduce younger generations to “the art of sitting down and actually reading.”

His father said: “I think it gives him a release to talk about his experience in his writing and still be involved with a sport he loves. Even if he didn’t get hurt, at a certain point he would have had to pick a career and it would have been something in motocross.” – The News-Times/Tribune News Service