Gregg Covers Sport

Sweat ran down Curtis McGrath’s forehead, stinging his eyes as the harsh Afghan sun beat down on his regiment. He looked out across the barren land they were clearing, his head constantly on a swivel, danger potentially lurking around every corner. The crunch of sandy gravel under foot providing a solemn soundtrack to the detail-orientated and painstaking search for improvised explosives. On day four of their patrol, after being tasked to make sure a checkpoint that had been over by insurgents was clear of IED’s, the regiment was explosively removing a large boulder that was blocking the main road. The task was routine, but something would happen that would change McGrath’s life forever.

“I went to a different boulder that was blocking a part another part of the road,” McGrath reminisces, remembering that day as if it was yesterday. “I was in the wrong place. We’d already searched the area that I was walking on, and as I walked off I was just walking along and the next minute I’m lying on the flat of my back, looking up at the sky.”

In the blink of an eye, McGrath’s world had been turned upside down. Dazed, with no memory of what had happened, the then 24-year-old slowly looked around himself. Lying right next to the small crater created by the explosion, dust and rocks flying everywhere, and tried to get his bearings, casting his eyes down to find both his legs were missing.

“There was rock rocks and dust all falling from the sky. I was just super confused because it at this point I don’t remember the blast. I don’t remember any pain. Nothing,” he says, recalling that moist poignant of memories. “And that’s when I get up on my elbows and look down. I can see my legs are completely missing. The blast crater’s right next to me, and I could see the like the blood, just like streaming out of me, gushing out of me. That’s when the pain hit me, like incredible, incredible pain. And it wasn’t just that my legs were sore, my head was sore, my arms, my back. Everything was in complete agony.”

The explosion had cost McGrath both his legs, and it took three months of intense rehabilitation before he was walking on prosthetic legs. However, his attitude and perseverance remained steadfast. Infamously, as he was stretchered to the Med-Evac helicopter, he told his fellow soldiers that he would be okay, and that he would become a Paralympian. Despite not considering it a promise, more saying it to reassure both himself and his comrades to help ease the trauma they were all experiencing, it proved a foresightful look into the future that awaited him.

Prior to McGrath going for his fourth Paralympic Gold medal, we sat down to discuss his life, his journey from soldier to elite athlete, and his advice for young athletes just starting their Paralympic journey. Watch our full discussion at the top of the article.