LEVY: A man's marathon effort to get his life back

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Five summers ago, Toronto’s Chris Channon was beaten to within an inch of his life on a remote Thailand beach and tossed onto a pile of seaweed like a piece of trash.

When he came to, he realized he couldn’t move his arms or legs.

“I went to move and nothing,” said the father of three, a former marathon runner, diver and mountain climber.

As he was to find out, his neck had been shattered from the beating — trauma which usually leads to quadriplegia.

But Channon has defied the odds, much of it through sheer will and determination.

On Oct. 20, the 55-year-old Channon plans to walk the Toronto Waterfront Marathon’s 5K course with his fiancee Lerries Perdeguerra, friends and family beside him.

“I decided I’m going to focus on what I can do, not what I can’t do,” he told the Sun in an interview Friday.

After he was attacked by a local brandishing a lead pipe, he lay there “screaming for help” until he could no longer scream.

Channon, who’d left his life behind as a successful entrepreneur to do humanitarian work, had taken a few days off to enjoy the Koh Lipe beach.

When he went to a convenience store to take out cash, he recalled having a “creepy feeling” someone was watching him.

That evening, as he passed through an unlit section of the beach, a local approached him.

Channon said he spun around to block the man, thinking he was trying to reach for his wallet.

He can’t remember anything more.

“When I tell that story it gets surreal,” he said, stopping as he became emotional.

He said when dawn hit he woke to the sound of barking dogs and all sorts of “little creatures” trying to eat and sting him.

“My life flashed before my eyes,” he said. “I started to cut a deal with God to save me.”

Eventually a couple from New Zealand found him and got help.

He then endured more than 12 hours of “absolute torture” with no drugs to dull the searing pain until he was transported to a proper hospital.

At the hospital in Hot Yai, the doctor told him in limited English he needed emergency surgery or his chances of living were “very slim.”

Channon said miraculously a neurosurgeon from California was over touring hospitals and agreed to scrub in.

“At this point nobody knew my name and who I was,” he said.

When he woke up in the ICU the doctor tracked down his sister through Facebook,

Eventually he was transferred to a top rehabilitation facility in Bangkok and then flown by a medevac back to Sunnybrook hospital.

It was during that stay Spinal Cord Injury Ontario officials reached out to him.

They got him into their peer support program and greatly helped him with the mental part to “have the strength” to carry on with his life, he said.

Channon is now able to walk, lift his arms and bend down to pick up things off the floor. When he gets fatigued, he falls — so he spends about 60% of his time in a wheelchair.

Channon said he plans to finish the 5K even if his twin boys have to carry him over the finish line.

He’s also raising money for SCIO to “give back.”

“If it even inspires one person, I’m happy,” Channon said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Channon’s fundraising goal is $5,500. Donations can be made at the Scotiabank Charity Challenge website.

SLevy@postmedia.com