Comeback Attempt
Johnson's personal life suffered as well, when his 13-month-old son drowned in a hot tub in 1992. At age 40, his marriage ended in divorce, and he was bankrupt and living in his class A motorhome when he mounted an improbable comeback bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The comeback ended abruptly on March 22, 2001, when Johnson crashed horribly during a training run prior to the downhill race of the 2001 U.S. Alpine Championships, held at The Big Mountain near Whitefish, Montana. He sustained serious injury to the left side of his brain, nearly bit off his tongue, and was comatose for three weeks.
Johnson currently lives in Zigzag, near Mount Hood, and remains brain-damaged and in need of constant care, mostly from his mother. He lives on disability and has become slightly more functional, though his speech and memory are permanently impaired.
Read more about this topic: Bill Johnson (skier)
Famous quotes containing the word attempt:
“... the attempt to control poetry, to subordinate it to extrapoetic ends, constitutes misuse.... it may be poetry’s stubborn quality of rockbottom, intrinsic uselessness which ... constitutes the guarantee of its integrity, and hence of its ultimate value to us.”
—Jan Clausen (b. 1943)