Spokane mountain biker critically injured in North Carolina crash to return home soon, says community support ‘carried me through this whole experience’

Alex Hermanson loves to mountain bike.

On a bike out in the woods is where he’s found personal freedom, built friendships and developed his physical and mental strength, the 20-year-old said. It’s a passion he shares with his twin brother, Matt Hermanson. The Spokane-area residents have biked and built trails from here to the West Side, where they’re sophomores at Western Washington University.

“It’s kind of an analogy for life … you look where you want to go with mountain biking, and it’s the same way in life, you look where you want to go and where your goals are, and then you’ll end up there,” Alex said.

At the start of April, the Upper Columbia Academy 2023 graduate 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. He shattered several vertebrae and has since had multiple surgeries to stabilize his condition.

Alex regained his ability to breathe on his own late last week, and used his renewed ability to speak to thank his supporters, caregivers and friends and family, while stressing his desire to get back on the trails one day.

“I have no ill will toward mountain biking or the series or the event,” Alex said. “I still love biking with all my heart, and want to bike again. Really bad.”

Alex said the crash was likely the result of coming into a corner at a high speed. After going down a steep hill on the course, he went to turn into a left-hand corner, lost control and smacked into a tree.

He quickly came to after hitting the tree, and realized he couldn’t feel anything below his arms.

“The crash was really scary,” Alex said, but his safety gear likely prevented a fatal accident. “My helmet transferred the load rotationally, so instead of, like, blowing up my brains, it just broke my neck and almost severed my spinal cord.”

The weeks since have been a blur of surgeries, he said. His breathing tube was removed, and he began breathing with a continuous positive airway pressure machine’s assistance last Thursday. At the time of his Wednesday morning interview, he had been without any respirator assistance for over 51 hours.

Lori Hermanson, Alex and Matt’s mother, said each day since the tube was removed has brought “monumental changes.” Alex got the go-ahead to start eating soft foods again Tuesday and was able to spend the weekend with his friend Eddie Dunfield, who flew from Spokane to be with Alex and Matt. He brought an Xbox in tow so they were able to play some games together, and Alex could pass the time in his Minecraft realm.

Lori said she’s most thrilled to hear her son’s voice again and being able to communicate with him.

“It’s just fun watching him make all these milestones, and he’s been making a lot of them the last five days or so,” Lori said. “We’re all a bit emotional, and we’re feeling everything very deeply, but that’s normal for the situation, and we’re just feeling it and working through it.”

It’ll be at least another week before Alex will be transferred to Spokane via air ambulance for further care and rehabilitation. Lori said the family is working to secure an air ambulance with assistance from the California-based nonprofit Road 2 Recovery, which provides financial assistance to motocross, supercross and action sports athletes like Alex in the event of an injury.

The Hermansons are working on an agreement with Road 2 Recovery and fellow nonprofit Angel Flight that would absolve the family of any of the transportation costs not covered by insurance. It’s just one of the many ways strangers and community members alike have shown up for the family in recent weeks, Lori said.

As for the rest of the costs of the medical care so far – and still to come – Lori said the family will still need support. More than 260 individuals had donated nearly $43,000 to the Hermansons through a GoFundMe set up by a family friend as of midday Wednesday.

“Everybody has been so encouraging of Alex and our family, and so we felt a lot of support from friends and family, and even people we don’t know in Washington, but also people down here,” Lori said. “There’s even been some members of a local (Seventh-day Adventist) church that have brought us homemade meals a couple of nights a week.”

Alex said the experience has reinvigorated his faith, something he leaned on since the moment he awoke after the crash. He remembers calling out to the first responders with Virginia-based Direct Incident Response Team Medical that got him off the mountain that day to see if any of them were fellow Christians.

Glenn Jackson, who co-founded the organization, answered Alex by starting to pray for him, which Alex said helped him find some comfort in a scary moment.

“I could feel that I could move my arms, and Glenn was in front of me,” Alex recalled. “I was like, ‘I can move my arms,’ and I started hitting his belly. And he said, ‘Keep on hitting my belly, bud. Keep on hitting my belly.”

Lori and Alex said they’re immensely grateful for the care DIRT provided that day, as well as the excellent medical team who’ve worked with Alex over the past few weeks at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.

Alex does not know when, or if, he will climb on a bike again. He’s also not sure when he will return to school, where he was studying mechanical engineering to one day design and build bikes of his own. His return to Spokane is imminent, but he’s not at a level of health where an exact day has been pinpointed.

He said he’s anxious about his brother returning to those aspects of their lives they’ve shared together for so long, like life in Bellingham and the time on the trails.

“My brother is my best friend,” Alex said. “I don’t think I’ve spent more than a week apart from him before, so it’ll be kind of hard to be without him, you know?”

Regardless of all the uncertainty, Alex was steadfast in his desire to get back to all of those aspects of his life.

He said he looks forward to returning to Spokane, and in the meantime, he’ll be playing Minecraft, watching old episodes of “Frasier” and “eating more good food, now that I can.”

“I just want to thank you all for the love, support and prayers, because it means the world to me,” Alex said to his supporters and caregivers.

“It means a lot and really carried me through this whole experience.”