A tragic accident changed Mark Raymond Jr.’s life eight years ago, but it hasn’t stopped him from helping and inspiring others just like him.

Raymond described it as a normal day during the Fourth of July weekend in 2016.

“What was different was mom was not there to scream, ‘Mark, don’t dive off the boat,'” he said.

Raymond hit his head on the sandy bottom of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. After the terrifying moment, he said he couldn’t move.

Raymond’s best friend rescued him. He woke up a few weeks later from a medically induced coma after fracturing the fifth vertebrae in his neck, which left him paralyzed and no longer able to walk or fully use his hands. 

Raymond could only imagine what his future now held. 

“Am I still going to find love? Am I still going to, you know, have friends,” he wondered.

After the accident, Raymond went from being a social butterfly and an outdoorsmen to a loner, saying he suffered from suicidal thoughts and depression for a time.

Road to recovery

While scrolling through Instagram one day, Raymond found a rehabilitation facility in California.

“Seeing a room of empty wheelchairs and people doing things that doctors told me I couldn’t do, that effort to challenge the norm, to go the extra mile was really, I think what hooked me,” he said.

Raymond spent three months at the facility. After just the first month, he said he knew he needed to bring a similar program to the New Orleans area.

Inspiring and changing lives

Today, the 35-year-old’s workouts focus on making adjustments for seated equipment.

Two years after his accident, Raymond started the Split Second Foundation. In 2021, he opened his gym in New Orleans. It was a decision he made not only for himself, but for others with different needs. 

His hero, the friend who pulled him out of the water, suggested the name of the gym, because Raymond’s life changed in a split second.

Raymond said he has a range of clients.

“We’ve got strokes. We’ve got spinal cord injuries. We’ve got cerebral palsy.”

Next year, the gym will move into a building with five times more space. Raymond said he wants to push his clients to get better in a supportive environment.

“We want them to gain, but most importantly, we want them to feel like they belong, like they have a purpose, like they have a home.”

As for goals of his own, he would like to get back on a boat again soon.

“This is Louisiana. Louisiana’s ‘Sportsman’s Paradise,'” he said. “I want a boat I could roll this chair on and still roll around the boat a little bit and have a good time.”

Omar Villafranca

Omar Villafranca is a CBS News correspondent based in Dallas. He joined CBS News in 2014 as a correspondent for Newspath. Before CBS, Villafranca worked at KXAS-TV Dallas-Fort Worth, at KOTV-TV the CBS affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and at KSWO-TV in Lawton, Oklahoma.