RAVENNA, Ohio — If you're ever looking for 21-year-old Alex Copen, you'll often find him at his happy place, playing with his dogs outside his family's spacious Ravenna home.
He appreciates the nature - something he's long admired as an Eagle Scout.
A gifted athlete at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent, he excelled in soccer and lacrosse.
He's also admittedly a little bit of a daredevil.
"I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie. I like to do adventurous things, whatever it is," Alex told us.
"He's always been very active, never walked anywhere, always ran," his mother, Lisa, told us.
It was the only life Alex knew, until a year and a half ago, when an impromptu trip to New York with his buddies changed everything.
"I'd never been skiing. I'm like, 'All right, let's go,'" Alex said.
The group was having a blast, Alex was getting the hang of it, so he went for a bigger challenge.
"It was kind of like a joke at first, we were like, 'Oh, let's go down this black diamond,'" Alex said. "It's the last mogul and I'm going really fast at this point and I hit it and I just kind of closed my eyes ... because I knew I was gonna crash. I landed just right. And I broke my T-12 vertebrae."
Alex was unable to move his legs and in shock on the helicopter ride to the hospital.
"I knew I broke my back," Alex said. "I didn't understand the weight of it. I didn't understand what that meant."
He'd soon find out after a 12-hour emergency surgery.
"I just remember the doctor coming in and he's like, 'You're paralyzed. You broke your T-12 vertebrae.' And that was pretty much it," Alex remembered.
His parents made the two-hour drive to a Pennsylvania hospital. They were terrified of how he'd process the news.
"Because I know how active he he is. And I know that ... my fear was that he wouldn't want to live that way," Lisa said.
But that's not Alex. That's not the Copen way.
"I appreciate how straightforward the doctors were. I'm glad they didn't lie to me and give me false hope," Alex said. "It was hard to digest and hear that because I'm like, 'Nah, I'm gonna beat this,' but it's not something you can beat. And it's not like a matter of will. It's just a matter of reality."
So he got to work, spending months at Craig Hospital in Colorado, enduring grueling physical therapy and trying to regain his strength.
He made lifelong friends there, drawing inspiration from each other. It helped him get through the constant pain he'd experience every day. In the last 18 months, he's had six different surgeries.
Not many people could get through that kind of agony, but Alex can.
"It's the warrior mindset that keeps Alex going. And that's a big time tool that he's really fortunate to have for sure," his dad Travis told us.
His friends and family know that, too. That's why, last month, they threw him a golf outing fundraiser to help him get a Bowhead adaptive mountain bike. They know he wants to get back on the trail to nature, where he belongs.
"I really wanna like go travel the country and take my bike with me and go ride and just see the world," Alex said.
He's not one for attention, but he'll never forget this act of kindness.
"If I didn't have a family to keep living for and my friends and my community, I don't know if I'd be here. I mean, those are the most important people in my life," Alex said.
For his family, Alex is their hero.
"Oh, he one-hundred percent inspires me. Yeah ... he keeps me going every day," Travis said.
"I know Alex, 2.0 is going to be incredible ...because he was incredible before he got hurt," Lisa said.
Today, Alex is leaning into his inner strength, that Scout mentality that lives within him so deeply. He hopes his story will inspire just one person to hang on.
"My dad has just raised us and my brothers to never quit. And that's the way I am. I'm not gonna quit," Alex said. "You just have to take it a day at a time and just fight those demons every day and try and find something good every day to focus on."
The Copen family says they are nearing their goal to get Alex that adaptive mountain bike. If you'd like to help them reach it, click HERE and in the "purpose of this gift" section, type "Alex Project."
Editor's Note: The following video is from a previous, unrelated report.
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