‘It is almost miraculous’: Man regains use of legs following spine injury from ATV crash

By Leticia Ordaz

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    ROCKLIN, California (KCRA) — Evan Beauchamp calls himself a walking miracle. Doctors told the young Rocklin man he would never walk again after shattering his back during an ATV crash in 2020.

“I was riding the quad one minute and woke up the next, and I was on the ground. I couldn’t move my legs,” Evan said.

Dr. Eric Klineberg with UC Davis Health was on-call that day. He had the tough job of re-aligning Evan Beauchamp’s fractured back using countless screws.

“I was worried about Evan. In fact, I remember talking to Evan and his family, telling them just how bad this injury was and the real possibility that he could end up paraplegic,” Klineberg said.

Evan didn’t accept his doctor’s prognosis. He refused to look at the X-ray showing his traumatic injury.

“I tell myself, I couldn’t imagine a life in a wheelchair and being a burden to my friends and family. I had to figure out a way to make it work again,” he said.

He began intense therapy to try to regain movement of his legs.

“Next thing you know, he got stronger and stronger. We didn’t know if he was going to be without a walker, a wheelchair,” said Lillian Beauchamp, Evan’s mom.

Six months later, Evan started walking on his own.

“Walking up our stairs. ‘I don’t need help. I don’t need a cane,’ so he was very confident and strong,” Lillian said.

His recovery surprised his team of doctors.

“It is almost miraculous. It’s a testimony. I really give Evan a tremendous amount of credit. He worked really hard during physical therapy,” Klineberg said. “He had some tough days where he had to really pull himself up by the bootstraps.”

Evan calls Klineberg a miracle worker because, like Humpty Dumpty, he put him back together again.

“He was giving me credit, how hard I have been working, but from my point of view, I feel like I had the easy job because you guys saw my X-ray. How do you look at that and say, ‘Yeah, I can fix that. We can put that all back together. We can get this kid walking again,'” Evan said.

“I think ‘wow, I was really close to not living the life I really wanted to,’ especially when it happened, being 24. You are not supposed to be in a wheelchair at that age,” Evan added.

Now, he’s zip-lining, wake surfing, deadlifting more than 300 pounds and more.

His next big goal is to run a 5K next year.

“I probably don’t want him ATVing. I probably don’t want him jumping off of cliffs. I don’t want him doing all of those things, but the reality is that his spine is nice and stable now, and he can resume just about any and all activities,” Klineberg said.

Evan offers hope to other people with injuries.

“It’s not a fun place to be, but with enough positivity, and a good mindset, you would be really amazed at what you can overcome,” he said.

Evan will continue to see Klineberg at the UC Davis Spine Center in Sacramento for another year.

Evan is a proud graduate of UCLA and is back home in Rocklin, helping to guide construction projects in the Golden State.

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