In the early morning hours of April 25, 1992, Jesse Hope headed home in a driving rainstorm from a night out on the town. Life was good. He had arrived back in the U.S. from Operation Desert Storm on Independence Day the previous year amid great fanfare. Standing at 6 feet 4 inches, he was strapping — with 21-inch biceps and a 62-inch chest, he said. He was three months shy of his 21st birthday.

As Hope neared the National Guard rifle range on Ga. Highway 2 in Ringgold in the darkness, he never saw the 18-wheeler without its headlights coming toward him in the opposite direction.

The collision was fierce.

The car flipped and landed upside down, flinging Hope through the back windshield. He was found 20 yards away with multiple injuries, including head trauma and four crushed vertebrae.

“I spent my 21st birthday in a coma,” said Hope.

He woke at the V.A. Hospital in Atlanta five months later, then spent the next two months in and out of a coma. Incredibly, the crushed vertebrae did not leave him paralyzed. However, Hope would still be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.

“It affected my equilibrium,” he said. “I can stand and take a couple of steps, but then I lose my balance.”

Hope also suffered two strokes while he was comatose, which severely affected his speech. This, coupled with his other injuries, meant a long hospital stay — approximately 15 months — which ultimately left Hope in a deep depression.

“I was huge when I had my wreck, but when I got home I weighed 125 pounds,” he said.

Adjusting to life in a chair wasn’t easy, so Hope found solace in a familiar place — the hospital.

“I was in the hospital for 14 to 16 months, so I knew everybody there,” said Hope. “I would go to the gym and work out and visit with the people in there. The rec director and I were friends, and she came to know how depressed I was. She asked me if I’d heard of the Games.”

“The Games” are the National Veterans Wheelchair Games, a competition held each summer and winter for veterans who are wheelchair-bound. Initially Hope blew off his rec director’s “spiel,” but the longer he listened the more interested he became.

“If it’s your first year at the Games, then they pay for your hotel and flight, so I went. This was in 1996, and they were in Seattle,” Hope said. “When I walked into the lobby at the Seattle hotel, there were 500 wheelchairs in there. Boom! My attitude changed right then. I learned that there’s nothing people in wheelchairs can’t do.”

Since then, Hope has competed in six Summer Games and one Winter Games and won four gold medals and two bronze. He leaves today for the 2008 Summer Games in Omaha, Neb., which will be Friday through Tuesday. He will compete in weightlifting, slalom, air guns, shot put and javelin.

Hope also wants to pursue something new this year — hand cycling. The cycle is long, with two wheels in the back and one in the front. The rider’s legs go out straight and he pedals with his hands. Cycles are expensive though — several thousand dollars — so Hope is currently searching for sponsors to help purchase one.