Collision victim swims to Block Island

BARRINGTON, R.I. (WPRI) - Trent Theroux saw what was about to hit him but could not do anything about it other than try to dive out of the way.

“Everyday I see it in my mind,” Theroux said, thinking back to the day a speed boat ran over him near Muschuck beach in Barrington.

It was September 23, 2002 when Theroux was kayaking in Narragansett Bay. As the speed boat approached, he got out of the kayak and then realized the operator could not see him.

“Then, as it gets closer,” he said. “I take my paddle up and I’m waving my paddle towards them.”

The boat kept coming.

“Within just a second, I felt the propellers cut me four times right from the base of my spine up to the top of my back,” Theroux said, punctuating his sentence with four slaps on his arm. “And each of those individually felt like somebody had a 2 X 4 that they clubbed me with.”  

He thought he might never walk again but did and thought he might never be able to pick up his children again but did.

“I'm very proud of him,” his daughter Haley said as she kayaked next to her father while he trained for his next goal. “It was scary not knowing if he would walk again.”

He walked and then ran in more ways than one; a marathon, an Iron Man, a climb of a sky scraper and now what he’s calling Back to Block.

On September 8, he will swim on his back, to Block Island from Point Judith. That is about a 13 mile swim or roughly 12 thousand strokes.

“Out in the bay you’ll get chop. Constant, boom, boom, boom. boom of waves hitting you,” he explained. “But in the Atlantic, the swells will be very big so I may have a couple foot swells to have to ride over.”

With his wife in one kayak, his daughter in another and his coach in the ‘chop’, he trains in the same water where he was almost killed. He decided to swim on his back to Block, to underscore the need to raise money to help spinal cord injury patients with what they face every day.

“They have to figure out how they're going to pay for the ramp to get them into the house. How they're going to pay for medical equipment.None of it’s covered by medical insurance, almost none of it.”

His goal is to raise $50 thousand or about 4 bucks a stroke for the organization RISE Above Paralysis. You can find out how you can help by logging on to www.backtoblock.org .

Send your news tips to Walt Buteau at wbuteau@wpri.com and follow Walt on Twitter: @wbuteau