Burgeoning Spokane mountain biker, 20, in critical condition following crash in North Carolina

A 20-year-old Spokane man is in critical condition in a North Carolina hospital after shattering several vertebrae in a mountain biking accident Saturday.

Upper Columbia Academy 2023 graduate Alex Hermanson was participating in a practice run for a Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series race in Zirconia, North Carolina, when he lost control and crashed into a tree, according to a post on a mountain biking social media page he and his twin brother, Matt Hermanson.

“Immediately, Alex had no feeling of his body and was having trouble breathing,” the post reads.

Alex regained some feeling in his upper body shortly before being airlifted to Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, where he underwent immediate surgery to relieve pressure on his spinal cord, and another a few days later to stabilize his neck, according to the post.

“It was really a freak kind of accident,” said his father, Mike Hermanson. “He wasn’t overriding, it wasn’t a spot that was above his ability. And as a mountain biker myself, you know, things can just happen really quickly.”

Matt said it could be weeks before his brother is transferred to Spokane via air ambulance for further care and rehabilitation. He is intubated, and will need a tracheostomy that he will eventually be weaned off of to retrain himself to breathe on his own.

A GoFundMe to cover the family’s extensive medical costs, including the air ambulance, has been set up by family friend Jayme Huenergardt. She’s known the Hermansons for years, and wanted to step up to assist “being a mom myself and knowing the passion that these boys have.”

Matt’s been by his brother’s side since the crash, as the two traveled to the South to compete in the race. Their parents are also in North Carolina for support.

The family was able to speak with Alex briefly Wednesday morning before his tube needed to be put back in due to an inability to maintain healthy oxygen saturation levels, and they said he has maintained his chipper attitude, kind spirit and sense of humor throughout the ordeal.

“He’s a person who just loves people,” his father said. “He’s got such a big heart.”

Matt said the realization his brother crashed came in waves. He was waiting at the bottom for his brother to appear and had heard a rider crashed on the course. He “got this feeling” it might be his brother, so when race officials named a plate number, he scrolled through photos on his phone to confirm. He then found a course marshal to point him to the medical tent where his brother was taken shortly after the crash.

“I kind of learned about it gradually, and it kind of just got more and more overwhelming,” Matt said. “I don’t think I really processed in the hospital. It was more in the morning after, when I was packing everything up, when I was kind of starting to think about everything.”

He reflected on the long road ahead for his brother’s recovery, what it might mean for his college courses and how it will change their relationship to racing – their shared passion from an early age, he said.

“I was thinking of all the biking we do together, and how huge a part it plays in our life,” Matt said. “And how a lot of just everything we do is based around this, and how it’s going to change kind of the dynamic.”

Mountain biking has always been a passion of the Hermansons, Huenergardt said. The brothers started their racing team and began creating social media content under the name “Project Motion” while in high school, around the same time the pair converted their backyard into a practice track, she said.

Huenergardt’s son was a member of the team before the three went their separate ways post graduation. She said the Hermanson brothers, now sophomores at Western Washington University, selected the school in large part for the favorable weather conditions for year-round riding.

“That was the sole reason we went there,” Matt confirmed .

Over the years, the brothers have built trails, repaired public areas, built setups for fellow riders and filmed a lot of content on both sides of the Cascades. All the while, they were building a community, said Lori Hermanson, the twins’ mother.

“It’s interesting how much they’ve inspired the mountain bike community around them,” Lori said. “… Watching them develop and how much they’ve been a part of the community and how these people have interacted with them and everything, it’s just fun to watch how they’ve grown over the years.”

Their father said their adventures inspired him to try his hand at downhill racing, so he entered himself into some local beginner races last year.

“Mountain biking was their life, or is their life,” Mike said. “Especially in school. It had such a positive impact on their transition into college.”

Last fall, Matt turned pro. Alex was on track to do the same, just a bit delayed after missing some action due to an earlier ACL injury. The duo picked up sponsorships from tire manufacturer Maxxis, protective gear manufacturer 7iDP and Lenny’s Bike Shop outside of Bellevue, the same shop for which the brothers raced .

The North Carolina race was Matt’s first on the circuit as a newly minted professional. He said he’s been trying to take things as they come and avoid ruminating on what could be, and what their shared future might look like.

“I know there’s a lot of different ways this could go, but it’s kind of hard to really plan it all out right now,” Matt said. “Because depending on where his recovery stops, and what ability he does have after all of this kind of settles, that really changes what you’re going to be able to do later.”

Matt said he’s not looking too far ahead when there are many “forks in the road” for the family.

“We’ve talked to other spinal cord injury survivors, and even five years down the road, they’re still seeing little improvements,” Lori said. “So it’s not like months, it’s not like a year. It’s a long marathon that we have ahead of us that we’re going to be on together.”

The expenses of what that recovery will look like are immense, Mike added. There’s the costs of the medical care in North Carolina, the transport to Spokane, the rehabilitation care, the necessitated changes to the family house so it’s wheelchair accessible and many more that are likely to arise down the road.

“All of these things are weighing on us,” Mike said. “Most importantly, his well-being is weighing the heaviest, and how do we make that a reality, his best possible outcome.”

Alex is the kind to lend a helping hand in times of need, often going above and beyond what others may expect, Matt said. He’s a driven individual with a love for the outdoors, who was excited for the upcoming courses in his mechanical engineering program at Western Washington.

“He really likes pushing himself, and trying to do the best he could at what he was doing,” Matt said. “He likes going that extra mile for a lot of people and helping them out.”

Matt said they’ve started to see some of that love Alex poured into others poured back into their family. They’ve received numerous calls and texts as news of the accident spread, have received excellent care from the race organizers and local medical experts, and even had a North Carolina Seventh-day Adventist pastor visit with them after he received word from the church’s network.

As of Wednesday evening, the GoFundMe had received nearly $13,000 in donations in a day of being online. About a third of that was raised in the first hour.

Mike and Lori say they’re grateful for the community support, and can’t praise the medical teams at the track and at Mission Hospital enough.

“But in the same token, it’s extremely difficult as a parent who loves their kids so much to see them go through this pain and suffering,” Mike added.

Matt plans to put together a video commemorating Alex’s races over the years, as well as updates on his recovery, for their social media pages. For now, he and his parents are taking things one day at a time.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty, including what exactly the recovery will look like, Mike said.

“We’re still working through the mental pieces of what does life look like for him,” Mike said. “And when we talk about recovery, he will be a different person than he was before this.”

Lori and Mike acknowledged mountain biking does have inherent dangers, but it brought great joy to their sons and played a key role in their development as people.

“You always worry about your kids’ safety, but at the same time, if that’s the thing they love and that they’re passionate about, and that’s what makes them feel alive, you can’t hold them back, and you try to set them up for as much success as possible,” Lori said. “You want to keep them safe, but you want to let them be who they are.”