Courtesy photo Williamsburg’s Kurt Detwiler plays for the Pittsburgh Steelwheelers wheelchair basketball team.

In the early-morning hours of Saturday, May 23, 2015, Kurt Detwiler was involved in a tragic incident that changed his life forever.

The former Williamsburg High School and Waynesburg University football standout was a passenger in a vehicle that careened off Route 22 in Williamsburg’s Catherine Township and crashed into a farm field.

Three of Detwiler’s close friends were also in the vehicle, and two of them, the driver Joshua Fay, and passenger Allison Brooke Edwards, died in the accident. Detwiler and another passenger, Fay’s younger brother, Elijah, were hospitalized with serious injuries.

The tragedy occurred between Detwiler’s junior and senior years at Waynesburg, and when he came back to consciousness in the hospital, his left leg had been amputated above the knee to prevent the spread of an infection. His right leg was also severely damaged, necessitating the removal of the Achilles Tendon, and eliminating any feeling from the ankle on down for Detwiler.

Three feet of Detwiler’s intestines were removed in a life-saving operation — the first of over 54 surgeries that he endured in the coming years.

Detwiler, now 32, said that the emotional fallout from the accident was even worse than the physical injuries that he suffered.

“The physical part sucked but (the emotional part) was definitely the hardest,” Detwiler said. “Seeing the emotional toll that my injuries took on my family and friends around me, seeing them hurting like they were, definitely made the biggest impact on me.”

There has also been a sense of survivor’s guilt that Detwiler has grappled with, and continues to struggle with, for the past decade.

“I would say that it’s still a work in progress,” Detwiler said of his emotional recovery. “The people in that accident were all close friends of mine. There are still days where I question why — why did I survive and why two of my friends did not.

“But I will never know why, I’ll never have those answers,” Detwiler said. “The best that I can do is to do the best that I can in life, and to make it as worthwhile as I can.”

Detwiler has definitely done that for over the past 10 years, and he continues to do so to this day.

Many individuals would be personally destroyed after such an experience. At the very least, such a tragedy would define the lives of most people who were subjected to it.

To his credit, however, Detwiler has been neither destroyed nor defined by the accident, although, as a human being, his life was changed irrevocably by it.

Detwiler married in 2021, and he and his wife, Michaela, are the parents of a 2-year-old daughter, Claire. The couple is expecting another daughter in the coming weeks.

Detwiler — who still lives in Williamsburg — has also been employed for the past six years as a home modification manager for the Laurel Medical Solutions company that is based in Ebensburg, where the most principal function of his job is to help other disabled people to obtain modifications such as ramps, stair lifts and grab bars for their homes.

And for over a year now, Detwiler has participated in sports competitions that are based out of Pittsburgh and which serve people with various types of disabilities. Through joining the Everybody Plays Adaptive Sports organization, Detwiler has been a part of the Pittsburgh Steelwheelers wheelchair basketball team, and last year, he participated in adaptive basketball, cycling, rock climbing and soccer at the first-ever Adaptive Sports Field Day that is jointly sponsored by the UPMC Hangar Clinics, Dick’s Health and Sports, and the Ryan Shazier Foundation.

Last year’s event took place at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Ross Park Mall north of Pittsburgh, and the second annual Adaptive Sports Field Day will be held Saturday at the same site.

Detwiler will participate in the rock climbing, golf and adaptive cycling events Saturday. Detwiler purchased a recumbent bike for cycling that allows him to insert his prosthetic left leg and his injured right leg into straps, while he puts the bike into exercise mode that permits him to pedal with his prosthetic leg.

Michael Grapner, who is the program coordinator for UPMC Medical Services and Rehabilitation, and has served as one of the organizers for the Adaptive Field Day, was impressed by Detwiler’s enthusiasm at last year’s event.

“I met him at last year’s event, and I watched him hit a golf ball and he crushed it,” said Grapner, who pointed out that competition in six different events — wheelchair lacrosse, amputee soccer, hand cycling, adaptive golf, rock climbing and wheelchair tennis — will be offered to participants at Saturday’s Adaptive Sports Field Day event. “And just seeing the joy that Kurt and the other competitors show in being able to participate in the adaptive sports programs is exactly why we do what we do.”

For Detwiler, participating in the Adaptive Sports organization and its annual Field Day has been a transformational experience.

“It has really helped to change my life,” Detwiler, a 2012 graduate of Williamsburg High School and a 2017 graduate of Waynesburg with a degree in business management, said of his involvement in the Adaptive Sports organization. “Before the accident, I had been very, very active every day either playing sports, working out, hunting, and fishing.

“And then after my accident, I kind of withdrew, didn’t really do much, wasn’t involved with sports, wasn’t hunting or fishing,” Detwiler said. “But when I got connected with the people there (at Adaptive Sports), I started to kind of get back to working out and becoming active.”

Traveling basketball team

Now in their 49th year of existence, the Pittsburgh Steelwheelers play basketball against teams of other wheelchair-bound athletes at various locations in and outside the state of Pennsylvania.

The Steelwheelers welcome both men and women on their adult team, on which players range in age from 18 to the mid-50s. The Steelwheelers also have a junior team for youths ages 9 through 17.

Detwiler drives to Pittsburgh weekly throughout the year to practice with the adult team, which he said was involved in “six to eight competitive events this past year,” including their home site in Pittsburgh.

“There was a tournament in Cleveland, a tournament in Rochester, N.Y., a tournament at Penn State University,” said Detwiler, who earned starting time as a defensive end on the Waynesburg University team in his junior year, after starting for three seasons at various positions on both sides of the ball at Williamsburg.

Detwiler — who praised his high school football coach at Williamsburg, Bob Hearn, and his college football coach at Waynesburg, Rick Shepas, as being “leaders of men” who taught him and other athletes life lessons like dealing with adversity — has always loved competing and participating in the Adaptive Sports program fulfills that yearning for him.

There have still been hurdles to overcome, however.

“Because I was active and competitive and doing sports at such a high level before the accident, the anxiety and fear of failure when trying again is probably one of the big challenges for me,” Detwiler said. “Now I’ve had to restart and relearn everything and overcome that fear of failure.”

Lee Tempest, a native of Ohio who now lives in Pittsburgh, has been affiliated with the Steelwheelers for 30 years, and presently serves as a player-coach for the team, as well as the organization’s president. Tempest has known Detwiler for just over a year and said that Detwiler’s perseverance and determination has motivated and inspired many others.

“He’s such a good person, he’s got some real drive, and he motivates the team a lot,” said Tempest, who was rendered a paraplegic from injuries that he suffered in an automobile accident in Ohio at the age of 18. “The thing about Kurtis that I’ve been most impressed with is his drive.

“He gets along well with all of the players on the team, he uplifts them, and he encourages them while pushing them to play to their top capabilities, just as he pushes himself. He’s a very smart guy who I’ve learned a lot about from chatting with him over the past year.”

Tempest also appreciates that Detwiler is a good family man.

“I love his family dynamic — he’s a great husband and father — and he’s determined in everything that he does, not just basketball,” Tempest said. “I’ve heard stories about him going out into the woods, hunting, shooting a deer and making sure that he gets it out of the woods himself, even if he has to drag it a mile back to his vehicle.”

Finding a silver lining

It’s been almost a surreal destiny of sorts, but Detwiler said that the two greatest experiences of his life — meeting his wife and obtaining his job helping to improve the lives of others with disabilities — have occurred after the horrific accident.

Detwiler took a year off college after the accident, graduating from Waynesburg in 2017. During his senior year, he met his wife, a native of Clarion who had enrolled at Waynesburg.

“She came into the school the year that I came back to Waynesburg after the accident,” Detwiler said. “We have a family now, and I definitely wouldn’t have met her if it hadn’t been for my taking a year off school following the accident.

“And in my job, I get to help people who are facing some of the same circumstances that I have been facing. That’s a great story in and of itself — after everything I’ve been through, to make a career out of it.”

Detwiler said that along with the numerous surgeries that he has undergone, he also participated in many years of physical therapy at the Mile Level Physical Therapy organization in Blair County. He spoke highly of the Mile Level professionals who helped him to exert his body to the maximum and to obtain a grasp of what he termed as the “new normal” in his life.

“The day of the accident was definitely the worst day of my life, but the way my life has turned out, so much good has come out of it,” Detwiler said. “I’ve been given a second chance, and when I get to feeling down, I realize that, no matter what I am facing, I’m actually very lucky, and I’m happy to be here.”