PoCo man paralyzed after tree crushes truck in windstorm

Posted January 16, 2019 9:53 pm.

Last Updated January 17, 2019 6:39 am.

This article is more than 5 years old.

PORT COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) — An online fundraiser has been launched for a 20-year-old Port Coquitlam man who was paralyzed during last month’s brutal wind-storm.

Alex Higden was driving a truck back to work in Pitt Meadows on Dewdney Trunk Road on Dec. 20 when a tree fell and crushed the cab of his truck, leaving him with a severe spinal injury. A tree branch broke during the windstorm around eight feet from the ground, and flew directly at his vehicle and broadsided the vehicle across the cab.

Now Alex is in the hospital and despite uncertainty over whether he will be able to walk again, he’s determined to defy any doubts.

“I’m gonna do everything in my power to walk. I don’t care what they say.” he says.

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Alex says the whole incident has made him appreciate life more.

“I could have died that day. I would’ve never been here, but I’m here, I’m still me, and I’m still going to push even harder than before.”

Hi father Todd says it was a freak accident.

“He got a blow directly to, I believe it was his forehead, and then it knocked him back,” he says. “His vertebrae was broken and it pushed the vertebrae into his spinal cord.”

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He says although Alex can’t walk right now, they are hopeful he might be able to someday. He’s already regained some sensation in his arms.

“He’s very lucky at this point, and very hopeful that he’ll get some more back,” he says.

Now his friends are putting a fundraiser together with a goal of taking Alex’s mind off the accident. His father says Alex has been getting a lot of support, even a surprise visit from a few former members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.

“Two of them reached out to Alex because they had the same type of injury, so I guess they had that in common,” he says. “One or both of them were playing sledge hockey now, and I guess Alex showed some interest that, if things don’t go his way with this whole thing.”