Ryan Atkins was in his third year at the University of Cincinnati on a full scholarship through the prestigious Carl H. Lindner Honors-PLUS business program. His beloved UC football team was undefeated that season and on its way to the Sugar Bowl. Thanksgiving break loomed, bookended by a jaunt to New York for a college conference and a trip to Europe.

The athletic 21-year-old was on top of the world as he and four fraternity brothers set off on Nov. 20, 2009, for a retreat in Tennessee. Then, in an instant, that world was upended — and with it, Atkins’ carefully crafted plans for the future.

At first blush, Atkins’ is a tragic story: Promising young man struck down in his prime by a life-altering accident that partially severed his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. Eating, dressing, brushing his teeth — the most mundane tasks beyond his reach.

But the reality that unfolded defies that narrative: Promising young man who refused to allow a broken neck to break his spirit, who discovered peace and purpose in his faith and forged ahead on a journey he never planned and a future he never imagined.

“Some people may look at my situation and feel sorry for me, but the truth is God has blessed me with more gifts over the past six years than I could have ever imagined,” Atkins says. “God has opened doors for me that I didn’t have before.”

Defying the odds

It was a team of firefighters who cut open the car door that crisp November day along a Kentucky highway. A simple overcorrection of the steering wheel had sent the undergraduate’s SUV barreling into a guardrail, his third and fourth vertebrae cracking as the vehicle flipped several times before coming to rest in a heap of crumpled metal.

The force of the crash ejected three of the SUV’s five occupants from the vehicle. Atkins and his front-seat passenger, Mike Jarvis, Bus ’13, bore the brunt of the injuries. Jarvis is now paralyzed from the chest down. The three back-seat passengers suffered minor injuries.

Emergency responders extricated an unconscious Atkins and airlifted him to a trauma center where his heart stopped for 108 seconds in one of three cardiac arrests.

As Atkins clung to life, hundreds of well-wishers from the UC community and beyond joined his family in holding their collective breath, wondering if the gregarious college student would survive. He awoke days later from a medically induced coma in a haze of confusion and fear.

“You have a Christopher Reeve-like injury,” one doctor told him, referring to the late quadriplegic actor and spinal cord research advocate.

“You’ll never walk again and will be on a ventilator for life,” another told Atkins.

But even as he lay paralyzed amid the whoosh and beep of machines, rendered mute by the breathing tube in his windpipe, Atkins mobilized his resolve.

“I’m going to defy the odds,” he vowed. “Next fall, I’m going to be walking on campus.”

Jeri Ricketts, director of UC’s Lindner Honors-PLUS business program, delivered a bulging scrapbook compiled by his classmates. UC’s basketball team crowded into his room at the rehabilitation center. Huddling shoulder to shoulder, the towering athletes prayed for the recovery of the ardent fan who had once rooted for their success on the court.

After arriving home that spring in 2010, Atkins grasped at normalcy. He enrolled in a summer accounting class and begged rides from fraternity brothers to campus events in his new set of wheels — a wheelchair-accessible van. He celebrated his 22nd birthday and built a fantasy football roster. By fall, however, Atkins’ once hopeful idealism waned.

The former honors scholar struggled to remember even small details. He fell asleep during tests. Grueling physical therapy left him exhausted. Simply getting through the day at times seemed as insurmountable as Everest. Willing his damaged spinal cord to send nerve signals to the furthest extremities of his body? Herculean.

“I realized it was a battle I really couldn’t win on my own,” says Atkins. “The thought of being back full time in classes — I just couldn’t handle it at that point. That’s really when I came to the end of my rope.”

Seeking the healer

He refused to give up. Atkins’ high school yearbook hints at this innate resilience. A selected quote by the Scottish theologian William Barclay runs alongside his senior portrait: “Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.”

But finding glory in a traumatic spinal cord injury? That required a power beyond his grasp. Although he’d grown up in a Christian home, Atkins had long ago sidelined his faith. Now, lying flat on his back, he reached for grace.

“Growing up, I heard the parable of Jesus healing the paralyzed man. I thought maybe Jesus would heal me, and I would get back on my feet, as if he was some sort of genie I could turn to,” says Atkins.

But as he sought healing of a different kind, something more profound began to take place.

“I turned to seeking the healer and not just the healing,” says Atkins. “Walking initially was the highest priority on my list, but now I realize that’s taken a back seat to my faith journey.”

That journey led him in 2013 to launch the blog flatonmyback.com, where he shares his story of finding glory in a life repurposed. Using voice-activated software, the once introspective Atkins soon began connecting with others.

“The overall new perspective on life that I’ve been given and have had the chance to share with others has been huge,” he says.

Though both went on to attend UC, their paths never crossed. Atkins’ accident finally provided the catalyst for their reunion. Perry, now in school to become a licensed medical massage therapist, immediately offered up her services.

“It was awkward at first,” admits Perry, whose slender frame belies buff biceps shaped by kneading the knotted muscles of patients. “What do you talk about when you haven’t seen each other in 13 years?”

A lot, as it turns out.

As Perry worked to relieve Atkins atrophied muscles, their professional relationship began to evolve. Perry admired Atkins’ inner peace, the ways in which he had embraced the transformed landscape of his life. Atkins was smitten by Perry’s selflessness and how they both seemed to connect spiritually.

In the summer of 2012, Perry gathered her courage and haltingly gave voice to her feelings.

“We were talking about my dating life, and I told him that I wasn’t finding what I was looking for in all these other guys. That was a nice transition into, ‘By the way, I am seeing those things in you,’” she says.

A dumbfounded Atkins floundered for words. “Thank you,” he finally mustered. “I’m flattered.”

“I walked out having no idea how he felt about me,” Perry says, laughing.

“Guys are pretty oblivious, I guess,” Atkins replies sheepishly. “There was so much going on in a physical sense that the whole dating aspect really wasn’t on my radar. She caught me off guard.”

But, Atkins adds with an impish grin, he quickly came to his senses.

“I realized I didn’t want to miss out on this awesome girl who’s right under my nose,” he says.

Over the next two years, their bond grew. This time, it wasn’t just puppy love. This was real love. Nicholas Sparks stuff.

And when Perry followed a series of clues in an elaborate scavenger hunt last summer only to find Atkins at the end of a candlelit path strewn with red rose petals, a sparkling ring at his feet and a nervous grin on his face, there was no hesitation. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.” 

Redefining miracles

Atkins, now 27, remains confident he’ll walk again someday, but he no longer dwells on the what-ifs. Instead, he’s learned that true miracles aren’t always about reclaiming what’s lost. Sometimes they’re about finding the miraculous in what remains.

Still, there’s no escaping his body’s frustrating limitations. The discovery of a pressure sore last year restricted him to his bed for seven months. His body, prone to muscle spasms, often leaves him tense, sleep deprived and largely confined to home.

Yet Atkins chooses to devote his greatest energies to the moments that sustain him, those unpredictable joys and sorrows that define a life, and his faith in a God he believes is using him for the greater good.

Last year, he fulfilled his longtime dream of returning to UC when he enrolled in online business courses. It was a different experience without the bustling energy of campus life, Atkins admits, but one filled with unexpected blessings.

“I wanted to finish what I started,” he explains. “When I needed the UC community the most, they were there for me. When I was ready to go back, they helped in every way possible.”

One professor visited him at home to review course and degree requirements. Another allowed him to do an exam by phone. Atkins discovered a passion for commercial real estate, a field that after earning his bachelor’s degree in business administration in December, he plans to pursue professionally.

Atkins and Perry have expanded into video-blogging to further share their faith. Also keeping the couple busy: plans for a fall wedding in a church near campus.

“The big hope that I intend to share throughout my life now is that our time here on earth is limited, and I really want to make the most of it,” says Atkins.

Today, the two are convinced that, in some mysterious and divine way, their lives have been carefully orchestrated. They even have proof.

About a year after they reconnected, Perry discovered her second-grade scrapbook. Flipping through the worn pages, she stumbled across a photo of her with Atkins. Pasted beside it, a long-forgotten assignment: “What I learned about the Bible and following Jesus …”

Her childish hand had scrawled the following: “I learned that God did many miricals. I liked the one of the parelized man the most.”

Stephanie Perry's scrapbook from her childhood.