Teen paralyzed in rodeo accident

LYNDEN, Wash. – A 17-year-old high school student missed his graduation ceremony after a rodeo accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

But as Lance Witman recuperated in a hospital bed Friday, several of his classmates replaced their mortarboards with cowboy hats in his honor.

Witman broke several vertebrae in his neck when he was bucked off a bull at the Washington State High School Rodeo Association state finals in Ellensburg on June 4, family members said.

He is recovering in the intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, said his uncle, Troy Olney, 41, of Bellingham.

“He’s very good spirited about it,” another uncle, Marty Witman, 37, of Lynden, told the Bellingham Herald. “He knows what’s going on, and he’s dealing with it very well.”

The former football player even wants to see the video footage of the accident, in which the bull he fell off stepped on him.

On graduation day, Witman was anxious to eat solid food for the first time in a week, rejecting the hospital’s offering of rice and beans and requesting a vanilla shake and a chicken burger, Olney said.

Witman – who turns 18 this week – gave up football his senior year to try bull riding. A week ago, he ranked 10th out of 20 Washington high school bull riders going into the state finals, according to the rodeo association’s Web site.

“He’s a rough and tumble guy,” said Lynden High School Principal Ken Axelson. “He’s a cowboy. Riding bulls fits his personality to a T.”

Earlier this month, a 20-year-old Omak man died after a collision with the bull he had been riding at a rodeo in the small north-central Washington city of Tonasket. Jeremy Ives was thrown from a bull named “Psycho” during a show on June 5. The side of the bull’s horn then struck his head, and he was knocked unconscious. He never woke up.

During Lynden High’s graduation ceremony, Axelson read a letter from Witman’s parents, Cindy and Gary Witman, thanking the community for its prayers, thoughts and phone calls.

Witman’s classmates started collecting money in a coin donation jar during lunch periods last week. So far, they’ve raised more than $800, Axelson said.

A large photo of Witman, clad in jeans, a button-down shirt, black cowboy hat and vest, stood tall at the graduation ceremony.

Class valedictorian Joe Grogan, who had spent months fine-tuning what he would say at the ceremony, rewrote his speech in 15 minutes after visiting Witman, Axelson said.

“What I saw changed my life,” Grogan told the audience, his voice trembling. “I saw a hopeful young man … who knows that no matter what they say, he’ll walk again.”

He then told his fellow classmates to never take life for granted.

“Find your passion,” he said. “Do what you love, because you just never know. You just never know.”