Shea Foster took a deep breath, considering the weight of the question, before answering.
How has adversity impacted his life?
He smiled, revealing a mindset completely opposite to most people’s.
“Adversity gives you an opportunity to overcome it,” Foster told the Post.
It wasn’t always easy to hold on to those feelings.
Foster, 27, will compete as part of the U.S. team at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, where he set an American record in the men’s 1,500 meters T-38 this summer, and recently gained new celebrity status after appearing on the Netflix reality show “Surviving Paradise.”
But at one point, it seemed unlikely he’d ever walk again.
In June 2021, just before reporting to Oklahoma State University, where he had committed to be a graduate transfer to the cross country team, Foster was driving a white 2012 Jeep in Louisiana when it was struck by an out-of-control 18-wheeler truck.
The accident left Foster in a coma for 48 hours and temporarily paralyzed from the waist down for two weeks. He broke his spine and required 50 staples on both sides of his body after a 360-degree spinal fusion surgery. Surgeons inserted screws and rods to put the broken parts of his spine back together. Foster also required knee surgery.
Initially, doctors told him it would be a “miracle” that he would even be able to walk again, let alone run competitively.
He relied on his family, especially his grandmother and aunt, to do almost everything for him, including bathing him.
“The pain is demoralizing,” Foster said. “It takes away from me my talent, or at least the talent I thought I had, that I inherited from people who made me special, other runners, other people. It made me realize that my identity isn’t in my running, it’s in controlling the things I can control. But it was very demoralizing.”
Foster, who ran at Lamar University and Southeastern Louisiana University before attending Oklahoma State, has had a life-changing experience.
“Everyone’s first thought is, ‘I can’t run anymore,’ but it really hits you mentally and affects the most silly things,” he said. “It changes the way you react to people, the way you type emails, the way you go to the grocery store, the music you listen to, everything.”
But Foster, who grew up in Houston, strived to exceed her doctors’ predictions.
Adversity is something Foster has long been familiar with.
The only boy among four sisters, Foster’s adoptive father committed suicide when he was in the fifth grade, and he also injured his knee and back in a separate accident while attending SLU in 2019.
Hardship was nothing new; it shaped Foster’s character.
“I was always told, ‘You can’t do that, you can’t do that,’ so I had to do everything myself from a young age and learn from experience,” Foster said. “I think my sisters always looked up to me and tried to figure things out. I was never perfect, but always going to school every day and being there for them in those moments really helped me athletically and academically and I think that made me a monster of a person to never give up.”
“I started to realize that I could be whoever I wanted to be and I could make my way there. I know I don’t have any extra resources. And I started to realize that if I want something, I just have to go for it. It’s been adversity after adversity.”
He disputed the lack of data on the 24-year-old athlete’s recovery from spinal fusion surgery and stressed his ability to return to running.
Just a few weeks after the surgery, he was able to walk a mile. Two months after the operation, Foster was running long distances. An MRI showed that his spine was intact and the bones had healed, to the surprise of his doctors, who cleared him to race again.
By November, Foster was running at Oklahoma State University, where he was named an All-American and finished 27th at the 2021 NCAA cross country national championships.
“It’s completely changed my outlook on life,” Foster said. “If someone starts complaining, I’ll say, ‘Oh no, I just spilled something,’ and I’ll say, ‘Imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have food.’ It’s funny, but now I say this about everything: ‘Oh, my phone battery’. ‘Oh, I’ll get my charger. Thank goodness I can charge it. Imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have your phone.'”
But Foster still felt disappointed.
Despite his miraculous return, it was clear he would not be selected for the Olympic team.
He was approached by the Paralympics but wasn’t particularly interested. He had dreamed of the Olympics, but was “devastated” when faced with reality.
Then, again, Foster’s perspective changed.
“Basically, I couldn’t contain my pride and my self-esteem,” Foster said. “I think what really angered me was that my sister has spinal stenosis, she’s in a wheelchair, she’s in eighth grade, she’s going to be a freshman in high school this fall. She wears diapers, she has a shunt in her head. The first thing she said to me right after she got out of surgery was, ‘We have matching scars now. We’re the same.'”
“She was like, ‘I can’t do any sports, I can’t do anything,’ and I was like, ‘I can do it.’ It’s hard to say from afar, but I think she really made me realize that I needed to let go of my pride because this is not just about me and achieving the goals that I want, but also to give a little bit of thought and inspiration and hope to other people who may not be in the same recovery.”
Foster enters the Paralympics as the favorite to win a medal in the men’s 1,500m race in the T-38 group, which is for athletes whose lower body and leg movement and coordination are mildly affected.
This comes amid unexpected TV fame: “Surviving Paradise,” in which contestants journey from the wilderness to luxury villas for a $100,000 prize, made Netflix’s top 10 in the US this year, and Foster has begun to attract public attention.
“It was something I’d always wanted to do, but the timing just wasn’t right,” Foster said. “It was completely by chance, but the timing was perfect. It was summer, my last year of school, there were no obstacles, it just made sense. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, I didn’t know if I was going to love it or hate it, but I asked myself, ‘Shay, would I regret not doing this?’ And the answer was yes. I’m glad I went. It was an amazing experience.”
The Paralympics, reality TV and inspiring others.
Foster is just getting started.
“Looking back, the story isn’t over yet,” he said.
