Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph

by E.M. Swift and Travis Roy

Book Overview

In this heartfelt testament to the power of love and the strength of the human spirit, Travis Roy, who suffered a devastating injury eleven seconds into his first college hockey game, reveals how he has managed to cope after the accident and, with the help of family and friends, overcome tremendous barriers to begin a new life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446521884
• ISBN13: 9780446521888
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Life can change in seconds!

The Travis Roy biography, Eleven Seconds, is a great book for hockey lovers, players, fans, or anybody who likes to read about triumph in the face of tragedy. The book starts out just like a biography of a superstar, like Steve Yzerman or Gordie Howe's begin. Travis' dad runs a skating skills camp, so Travis is advanced compared to the other skaters his age. Through high school he is one of the best players on the team. He transfers to prep school with a great hockey team. He shows off his skills and earns a spot on the BU hockey team, but eleven seconds into his first shift of division one hockey he goes headfirst into the boards and becomes a quadriplegic. For the first few months he can't talk due to hoses and cords running in his mouth. All his dreams of playing hockey in the NHL are over. What will his life be like? Who will take care of him? How will he live from now on?

I couldn't put it down...

This amazing young man leaves nothing out, the good the bad and the ugly. Truly a remarkable person and with the strength to share his life so that others can see a glimpse of a wonderful heart and true spirit .

Eleven Seconds

The emotion of Travis Roy's account of his struggle with paralysis does not slip into undue sentimentality. For instance, he says "Recovery from spinal-cord injury has nothing to do with how hard a patient, or how dedicated he or she is to walking again. Everyone who's ever been paralyzed will do anything to walk again. But for most of us, we may as well be trying to fly."I'm a paraplegic so I know the feeling.He tells about the pain of returning to college as a quadriplegic: "That was the hardest thing about returning to college: finding myself unable to interact with the other students because of my disability."He learned to take the good with the bad: "Because for my parents to understand the situation, for us to really come together as a family, I need to tell them what's going on inside my head. Good and bad."Roy was helped by the collaboration of Sports Illustrated hockey writer E.M.Swift to write a moving and uplifting story.

inspirational

Being an intercolligate athlete myself reading Travis Roys book gave me a geat deal of inspiration. I can't remember the last time that I sat down and thouroughly enjoyed reading a book to the extent that I could not put it down.

Life Changes in a Second, Yet It Stays the Same

Eleven Seconds is a remarkable book that shows the strength one needs to deal with a life changing blow in such a short time. While you have changed on the outside, you are still the same person on the inside. Having to deal with the physical changes is a feat within itself, but to deal with the emotions that accompany getting back into your daily life, that is the mountain of recovery. Travis deals with his accident in a matter of fact way in Eleven Seconds, and shows his readers what it was really like to go back into the world after his accident. I too am a quad, though a lower level, which means I can move my arms more than Travis and I can propel a manual chair, but I have been through the same emotions that Travis has been through. This book is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to understand to the best of their ability, how life truly changes after an accident leaves you with quadriplegia or paraplegia.