June 4, 2025, was just another day for Simpson College junior and athlete, Blane Wallace. No gut instincts whispered to him to proceed with caution or warned him of what was to come: by the end of the afternoon, he would be life-flighted from his hometown’s football field, be in a coma for days and survive his heart stopping twice.
The incident, which can only be described as a freak accident, occurred while Wallace was in the passenger seat of an ATV. His coworker, who was driving, attempted to move to the right on a gravel road and allow a following vehicle to pass. However, the road’s width was underestimated, and the ATV dropped and flipped down a steep ditch.
“I was in complete shock and asking, ‘What the heck just happened?’” Wallace said, recounting what happened immediately after the ATV flipped. “I felt paralyzed, but was able to get my head up and look, and my whole right leg was on top of my left leg. I was in disbelief.”
The extent of Wallace’s injuries included a broken pelvis, a dislocated right hip and a ruptured femoral artery. His leg had been hanging out the side of the ATV when it flipped, which was caught underneath the vehicle. He was ejected from the side and the ATV landed on top of him.
Gas and oil proceeded to leak onto Wallace, and out of precaution, witnesses at the scene attempted to move him.
“When they moved me, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life,” Wallace said, describing the incident. “My friend, who helped, when he heard me scream, told me it was the worst thing they’d ever heard. The pain was unimaginable.”
Once an ambulance arrived on site, they cut through the leg of Wallace’s pants, revealing just how extreme the situation was. Wallace’s hip and thigh were already purple.
It was later determined his hipbone was dying because of the dislocation, which put his leg at risk of needing amputation. He also suffered internal bleeding due to the ruptured femoral artery.
This called for an immediate air ambulance. The helicopter, stationed approximately an hour and 15 minutes away at MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center, arrived in less than 10 minutes and picked Wallace up from an abandoned football field.
“I don’t remember much from the helicopter; that’s when I blacked out,” Wallace said. He wouldn’t regain consciousness for two days.
Wallace needed two surgeries to fix the ruptured artery, hip and pelvis. He later found out during those surgeries, his heart stopped beating twice.
Wallace now has a rod on the back side of his pelvis, with a plate and six screws on the front side. However, surviving the surgeries was just the start of recovery; he would now have to endure months of physical therapy and encounter battles which don’t get talked about often.
“I’m a religious person, and I was just asking, ‘Why did this happen to me?’” Wallace said. “This is a deep statement, but I would say sometimes that I wish I hadn’t made it through the accident instead of having to go through this process. I take it all back now, though.”
Wallace said he felt mentally depleted, in part because he was unable to do anything on his own, such as walking, standing or even changing his clothes. For a month and a half, he spent his summer in a bed, feeling as though the 24 hours in a day were infinite.
It took the unwavering support of many to help Wallace throughout his journey, including from a recent Simpson alum, Brenden Godbout.
“It was really tough watching Blane go through this tragedy,” Godbout said. “There were some good days, and some bad, but his strength never wavered.”
Doctors also told him he would be in a wheelchair his first semester of school and in crutches for the majority of the second semester, meaning Wallace would not be able to have a tennis season.
“It was depressing,” Wallace said. “I was a really active guy coming in healthy to my junior year for tennis after working my butt off.”
Wallace began to refuse to let the things he looked forward to in his junior year be taken away. He started working and developing a determination not to be defined by a freak accident.
“During the whole recovery process, Blane was very adamant that he was going to come back stronger than ever, but even I was unsure just because of the severity of his accident,” Godbout said. “He said, ‘The comeback is always greater than the setback.’ From that moment on, I knew he was going to be just fine.”
That determination was proven on July 31, his 21st birthday. He had negotiated with doctors to try to stand for the first time by then, rather than wait three more weeks, and his birthday wish came true.
“I felt like the sun was coming down on me,” Wallace said. “ I felt so positive and had the biggest smile on my face. I hadn’t stood in two and a half months.”
Wallace has continued to beat the odds, being 70% recovered, months before projected.
“I was like, ‘I’m a young guy, and I don’t like this at all, I don’t want to be miserable,’” Wallace said. “‘So I’m gonna do as much as I can to change my whole mindset to get back as fast as possible because I want to do stuff and I can’t sit around not doing anything. I just want to live my life,’ so I was determined to get back.”
Wallace, like most college students, said he spent his life not thinking too deeply about the everyday risks we encounter, and he didn’t believe anything bad would happen to him at such a young age. Now this life-altering accident has opened his eyes to how precious life truly is.
Wallace wasn’t able to compete in the fall tennis season, but he will be taking the court this spring. His nerves on the right side of his leg and hip are still healing, and he will continue his journey with Simpson athletic trainers.
However, almost exactly six months after his accident, on Dec. 3, Wallace was able to ring the bell at Athletico Physical Therapy to mark the end of four months of rehab.
“This has definitely been my biggest milestone just cause this is the hardest thing I’ve ever faced in my life,” Wallace said. “It was a great moment for me knowing that I didn’t walk and now I’m walking out of there on my own two feet, even able to run.”
Now, Wallace wants to share his story to help anyone going through a situation similar to his.
“This won’t last a lifetime; it will be over before you know it, so just know if you push through something, there is the light at the end of the tunnel, even when it seems dark,” Wallace said. “Ask people for help and know there’s a positive out of every negative. Everything happens for a reason; it’s what you do with what happens that changes you as a person.”
