Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph [Hardcover]

Travis Roy (Author), E. M. Swift (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Within the 11 seconds that inspired this memoir, Travis Roy realized his dream, then smashed into his nightmare. On an October night in 1995, Roy, a talented young hockey player, skated onto the ice for his varsity debut with Boston University. Eleven fateful seconds later, he was paralyzed from the neck down. Aided by the sure touch of Sports Illustrated hockey writer E.M. Swift, Roy's moving account of his accident and his rehabilitation--confined to a wheelchair, he's gotten some use of his right arm back--avoids the maudlin. Instead, Eleven Seconds is filled with grit, hope, humor, and a thoughtful young man's introspection on the meaning of sports and the adjustments that follow when the ability to play them is taken away.

From Booklist

In October 1995, ready to play his first game as a member of the Boston University hockey team, Travis Roy looked forward to the biggest day of his life. It was big but for all the wrong reasons. Eleven seconds into the game, he cracked his fourth vertebra and was paralyzed from the neck down. With coauthor Swift, Roy tells the inspirational story of his life after the accident. He still can't walk but has regained some mobility in his right arm and has come to realize that his life is worth living. As he describes the stages of his rehabilitation, the agonizing slowness of the process emerges vividly. So does his sense of humor; he recalls, for example, the time he and his fellow patients at Atlanta's Shepherd Center giddily stole some potato chips, only to realize that none of them possessed the dexterity to eat their booty. This is an informative, clear-eyed examination of what it takes to fight back from personal tragedy. Wes Lukowsky

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books, Inc.; First Edition edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446521884
• ISBN-13: 978-0446521888
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Young Man, and A Fast and Fascinating Read., September 12, 2004

By 

Martina "Martina" (Los Angeles, Ca., USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph (Hardcover)

I have read many stories of "inspiring" people with spinal cord injuries, but never one as honest and emotionally open as this one. Roy shares not only the medical details of his injury, but his deepest feelings about what happened to him; and how he continues to deal with it on a day to day basis.

Instead of just giving uplifting blather about having a relentlessly positive attitude, he admits to bouts of self-pity; he talks about how other "well meaning" but patronizing people sometimes make him feel. It gave me a lot of insight into the difficult life of a quadriplegic, and definitely made me want to reach out more when I see someone in a wheelchair, and not to treat them as if they are invisible, which is often what happens in our society.

I had read another book called [I think], "Miracles Happen," by Brooke Ellison, who was rendered a ventilator dependent quadriplegic at age 11, and went on to graduate from Harvard. While I found Ellison very inspiring, her sugar-coated, surface description of her life and emotions somehow left me cold. In contrast to that, Travis Roy lays it all out there: everything he was and is thinking and feeling, whether or not those thoughts and feelings were "admirable."

He even talks about how awkward it is to be an "inspring" celebrity just by virtue of breaking his neck; and how he'd trade places any time with a normally abled anonymous person.

This is a fast read, and I would highly recommend it.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eleven Seconds, October 22, 2000

By 

Robert Dorroh (Sonora, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph (Hardcover)

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading this brought that night back, April 21, 2006

By 

Measi (Rhode Island, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph (Hardcover)

On Oct. 20, 1995, two of my friends and I gleefully took our seats in Walter Brown arena. We'd saved up the money to purchase season tickets (huge money for undergraduates), and couldn't wait to see the triple crown banner be raised. The beginning of the night was all of the heartpounding celebration it could be.

And then only a short time later, that all changed--That night of joy became one of profound sadness as we watched a (then) unknown freshman player fall to the ice, motionless. It was the first and only time I've personally witnessed someone injured so severely.

Since that night, I've kept up from time to time to see what Travis is doing, how he's doing, and am constantly amazed at how he's fighting. He is an inspiration, and his book should be on anyone's reading list.