Daniel Fulton always lived on the edge. Fulton, 24, was an avid snowboarder and skateboarder. He never thought that he would be living on the edge of his deathbed.
Fulton, who is from Mesa, was a typical high school student. With each day of Dobson High School nearing closer to graduation, Fulton had his mind set on pursuing music at Mesa Community College.
He did have his heart set on Arizona State simultaneously.
“I was born into (ASU),” Fulton says. “I never knew any other university. My first game when I was 6 years old was a Sun Devil game.”
Fulton was ready. He said ASU was a must. But first things first, Fulton wanted to shred the slopes with his friends one last time before he answered his heart. For the season’s first snowfall, Fulton went to Telluride, Colo.
This is when Fulton’s life changed.
On Dec. 9, 2009, Fulton ran into a tree, coming close to death. He was air-evacuated off Lift 9; he was carving the "west drain" slope. Sean McDonald, one of Fulton’s closest friends, recalls the day he had seen Fulton down.
“I came up on him,” McDonald says. ”They were pulling him off (Lift 9). Right away you knew it was really bad.”
McDonald and Fulton would always go to the bar — McDonald sporting his Denver Nuggets jersey and Fulton his Suns jersey — and watch the teams play. They’d always talk sports, McDonald says.
As for who would get the best of whom: “I’d say the Nuggets, he’d say the Suns,” McDonald says.
But in this situation, the stakes were much greater than bragging rights from a basketball game.
McDonald and Fulton were separated at the time. McDonald says that you never think things are going to happen until you’re staring at them. But now he’s seen a battered friend; he has seen the worst of Fulton’s life.
Fulton sustained multiple injuries that included a broken vertebra, some facial fractures and a few broken ribs. Despite these surface injuries there was a more serious one at hand.
Fulton suffered a more life-threatening injury: in the hospital bed, he laid unresponsively with a diffuse axonal injury, one of the most common and worst types of brain injury. He was in a coma, which happens often with these cases and which the majority of victims never come out of. Kathy Fulton, Daniel’s mother, said that the odds were against him.
“You just have to accept (his condition),” Kathy Fulton said. “But, he’s such a strong, driven individual — and his faith.”
Kathy Fulton has seen her son near death — and near revitalization. Daniel Fulton started to open his eyes just days after he first entered the coma. His motor skills came thereafter.
After being released, Fulton was to begin physical therapy and the rehabilitation process.
Fulton used an AutoAmbulator, a machine that trains proper walking motions. This was a major step. Fulton starting walking with around 30 pounds of resistance, and walks with 80 to 90 pounds of resistance today.
“The first time I saw (the machine) going and saw his legs moving, I started to cry,” Kathy says.
Daniel Fulton says that he just wants to keep moving forward.
“I’m trying to fight it,” he says. “The more I put forth, the more I achieve.”
In March 2011, Fulton even returned to the Telluride slopes. The slope was an easier grade than what he used to do, but he was still strapped in. Kathy Fulton was overjoyed. She said it was all because of the “Telluride Effect.”
“The first time a doctor acknowledged he was responding, doing something on command, the neuro doctor came in,” Kathy says. “They had him strapped up in a chair and (the doctor) said ‘look Danny, it’s snowing!’ (Daniel) turned his head and looked outside. He wanted to make up for the last year, to get back on that mountain. How could I tell him ‘no’?”
The “Telluride Effect,” essentially, was Fulton not giving up. Kathy says that he has more determination and feels so good about himself. Because of his lifted spirits, he’s taking more risks.
Fulton has been rock-climbing at Virginia G. Piper Sports and Fitness Complex in Phoenix. The facility was designed to help those with disabilities, like Fulton. There, he can push himself.
He feels that every day he is getting “a little better,” but because of the “Telluride Effect” he says that he has days that are worse because he overdoes it. Similarly, his aspirations have yet to be affected by his injury. Fulton still loves to snowboard; he’s done it since he was 7 years old. Fulton still loves ASU; he wants to be a Sun Devil.
For this, he pushes his body. This past Easter, Fulton returned to Telluride to snowboard. With this being only his third time on a snowboard since the injury, he needed assistance, but not much.
“He was basically riding by himself,” McDonald says, who met him on the slopes. “Every time I don’t know what to expect, but he’s getting better. He gets after it. That’s the kind of person he is.”
Fulton says that, at this rate, he expects to be able to go off a jump in two years. He says that now that he is injured, he needs to pursue his goals even more, and not only with snowboarding. He also wants a college education. Arizona State University is still his plan. Fulton wants to be accepted into the sustainability program, where he wants to graduate in five years.
“That’s just what you did,” Kathy says. “You go to Arizona State.”
McDonald doesn’t doubt that any of these things are out of reach. Although he commends Fulton on his realistic approach to life, he still thinks that anything is possible for him.
“Dan got hurt so it was good to move away from Telluride,” McDonald says about moving to Australia in part to get away from the accident. “(Now) it’s been good. He’s definitely got a lot better.”
McDonald is back to see his friend get better. Kathy is here to see her son get better. Daniel Fulton wants to get better. Together, they look for a bright future. Fulton wants to resume his life, where he had left off before.
“Every day is a new day,” Fulton said. “I take one day at a time.”
You can reach me at bcapria@asu.edu. You can also see Daniel Fulton’s full story at: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danielfulton.
