Dorian Michael Willes Adaptive Athlete Video
YouTube / Drug Test Idaho
Dorian Michael Willes answers the phone after just stepping into the door. He has just come from a meeting with a colleague about starting a Boise-based nonprofit organization that connects resources for amputees. It’s a venture he’s tried before, only under the wing of the Denver-based organization LIM359. He sounds excited about the venture: “My colleague and I got together because we want to start our own nonprofit in Boise. In the bigger cities, there are great support groups for amputees; in Boise there are a lot of amputees, but not enough communication about available resources.”
Dorian Michael Willes will represent the U.S. in this years Paralympics as a member of the bobsled and skeleton team.
Alicia Stephens
Willes is himself an amputee, destined for the upcoming U.S. Paralympics on the bobsled and skeleton teams. He has competed in many competitions leading up to this, including events in bodybuilding and track and field. He has been recognized in the topmost ranks worldwide and with able-bodied athletes in some events. He explains that in his first track and field event, despite coming to training late, he was running alongside some of the fastest people in the world. “These are guys I’ve seen on TV. They were world record holders like David Prince, and I was running beside them.”
Willes never thought he’d be here. “It’s been a whirlwind,” he says. He travels the world with his wife, cage fighter Billy Edney, and he’s a committed father. He’s a successful business owner and spends a good deal of his time speaking to Idaho youth about the dangers of drugs. “I have one arm, one eye, and one leg that works, and I’ve never felt better in my life,” Willes says. “I’m not saying no to anything. I’m saying yeah, let’s do it,” he laughs.
Willes hasn’t always had it this good. He was for a time a meth head and a collector for drug dealers. In 2008, at the pinnacle of his life as a drug addict and a thug, an intense police chase, in which he crawled through ventilation shafts and punched through walls, ended with police shooting him 21 times when, as Willes relates, they mistook his middle finger for a weapon. He had been hiding from the police during house arrest as he awaited federal charges against him for being caught with an illegal sawed-off firearm. It was a weapon that he had used in collections, an activity that paid his drug dealer, and also, along with his fierce presence, inspired fear in those he collected from.
“People don’t think this stuff happens in Boise because it’s just a small town, but I was duct taping people and putting them in the trunk of my car. I was beating people half to death and emptying out their houses,” he said. “I was doing this for almost a year straight, supporting my habit and getting away with it because no one I was collecting from was going to call the cops on me. They were meth heads just like I was, and the the last thing a meth head wants is to deal with the police.”
“I have to live with these things for the rest of my life–I put guns to kid’s heads, just to make a point. You know, like: ‘You call the cops and I’ll come back and kill your whole family.’ I was a low life of society. I’d become a piece of garbage.”
And he paid. He didn’t expect to live. “There was no white light. My life didn’t flash before me. I didn’t think about my kids or my family. All I felt was anger and resentment for what those cops had just done to me. The last thing I remember was them dragging me up a flight of steps, and then I blacked out.”
The paramedics who took him to the hospital didn’t expect Willes to live, either. They didn’t even think he was alive. “On the way to the hospital, the driver didn’t even turn on the lights or the sirens. They stopped at all the stoplights and took their time because they thought I was dead.”
When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, a sort of miracle happened: A nurse walked by Willes’ gurney and checked his pulse. “If it had been a minute or two later, I probably wouldn’t have made it,” Willes said. His pulse was beating very faintly. “What are you guys doing?” the nurse said. “This guy’s not dead!”
After the shooting, Willes was in a coma for three months. Then, after coming out of the coma, he went through a painful thirteen months of recovery and rehabilitation. He was then sentenced to two years in the federal penitentiary, shortly before he learned that he was going to lose his lower right leg.
“When I went to prison, I didn’t think I could get any lower,” says Willes. “But looking back, I know that prison saved my life. If I could have walked on my own and driven on my own, I would have gone right back to using.”
Willes’ redemption came during that time as an inmate and by way of the love of his family. “My mom was there. She took care of me and basically saved my life,” Willes says.
About halfway through Willes’ prison sentence, he received a note from his sister. “I don’t know what god I believe in. I consider myself a spiritual man, even if I don’t believe the same way my family does,” Willes says. “But my sister sent me a letter that said: ‘I know you’re having a hard time, but just know you’re not alone.’ With the letter, there was a card: Jesus was sitting on a bench with a rough looking kid. It said ‘lost and found’ at the bottom.”
“When she sent me that card, it was the first time in years that I really felt I wasn’t alone. I just sat on the bench crying because there was somebody out there who cares for me. From that day forward, I just started every day with things that were going to help me succeed when I got out of jail.”
Willes began reconnecting with family, repairing broken relationships and working towards solidifying his health. “I just knew that when I got out, I wanted to be better and I wanted to make a difference in other people’s lives. When I left those prison gates, I knew that I wanted to be a force to be reckoned with in a positive way.”
“I immediately started college. I started speaking with the Idaho Meth Project. All of my time was dedicated to giving to other people. Whatever I could do to help my community, I did. I felt that I was saved for a reason.”
“Competing in World Cup competitions and accomplishing what I have through athletics has opened so many doors on a larger scale for me. I have been able to not only share my story with kids, but people all over the world,” says Willes. “There are many other things I have yet to accomplish, but I know I will reach my goals the same way I have over the last 6 years, and that’s one foot in foot in front of the other, one step at a time.”
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Dorian Michael Willes is currently preparing for his next World Cup competition on the U.S. bobsled and skeleton team. The events begin early next month in Calgary. Willes has been working hard, but still needs help. To help him get to the events and represent the U.S, check out and support his GoFundMe campaign.
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