PENSACOLA, Fla. (WKRG) — Sometimes life’s hardest hits can turn into the greatest gifts. News 5’s Drexel Gilbert unwraps the story of one of those “gifts” while visiting a local gym. Drexel’s On The Road in Pensacola.
22-year-old Jade Wurth says he always dreamed of an athletic career.
“Growing up, I was wrestling, football,” said Wurth. “Wrestling was my passion.”
A track and field accident took those dreams away.
“Senior year in high school, 2 weeks into track season, I had thrown my shot put,” said Wurth. “My teammate wasn’t paying attention, although it wasn’t his fault, and when I bent over he threw his and hit me in the lower back. I broke my L3, L4, L5.”
In an instant, Jade was off the field and in the hospital, then learning to walk again.
“I felt like it just took a piece of my heart and it kind of broke me and I thought, what else am I going to do?,” Wurth said. “And that’s when I started going down the wrong path of drugs, alcohol and binge-eating.”
Eventually, Wurth says he found himself weighing 400 pounds, but he couldn’t break out of the cycle.
“I continued eating and continued eating and not doing anything with my life,” Wurth said.
Until his dad snapped a picture of Wurth sitting in the back of a pickup truck.
“I just had not a clue,” Wurth said. “It was not a picture I was ready for. I just sat there and stared at that picture. Next morning, I got up, 5 a.m., and started walking. It was a lot to try and move because it was a lot of weight on my back and my knees.”
But he persisted, first with walking, then with jogging and weightlifting. In two years, Wurth says he lost 185 pounds and has become a personal trainer, inspiring others to get control of their lives and their health.
“I just want people to be able to be happy in their life, be active, take their life back and just enjoy it,” Wurth said.
Proving that we don’t have to give in to life’s hard hits. And that may be the biggest win of all.
“I just hope my story can tell you, you can do it,” said Wurth.
