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 Mike Nemesvary is a quadriplegic who drove around the world in a specially equipped 1991 Chevy Blazer. His trip is documented in the film 'Round the World Challenge. The Nepean native is shown here with his dog Sassy. (Tony Caldwell, SUN) |
In the two-hour film documenting his 2001 'Round the World Challenge, Nepean native Mike Nemesvary includes some very personal footage of himself, naked and helpless.
It might seem brave for a 44-year-old former pro athelete with a healthy ego, like Nemesvary, but he says those kind of stark images -- naked and limp, his health-care aide lifting him in and out of the bathtub -- are necessary to drive home his message.
"I think you have to pull back the veil and just show people how hard day-to-day life is," he says.
Christopher Reeve, the Superman actor who died weeks before he was to have narrated Nemesvary's two-hour documentary, rarely showed the public that side.
"With Reeve he was always the proverbial actor. Because he was the actor, he showed people what he wanted them to see," he says. "My life is so bloody hard. Often he wouldn't show that brutal side."
It's just the sort of to-the-point explanation of the realities of his disability that the tireless Nemesvary is known for.
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It took months for the laser-focused advocate to cut 90 hours of footage down to a two-hour documentary shot during his seven-month, 40,000-km drive around the world.
The DVD has been circulated to some 1,000 volunteers and partners who made the tour, and the four years of planning that went into it, possible.
"Lots of people dream about things," said Nemesvary, "but you have to have a solid plan to back it up."
Nemesvary hopes a network picks up the DVD but after being the subject of several profiles -- including a 1986 piece on Britain's Channel 4 -- he's pleased with the current distribution.
The Scottish-born Nemesvary won three Canadian freestyle skiing titles for Canada before moving to Europe to compete for his native Britain.
He won three World Cup titles and worked as a stuntman, appearing in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, before breaking his neck in a 1985 trampoline accident.
Not content to sit around in denial or disappointment, Nemesvary went on to break a world tobaggan speed record and become a public speaker, lobbyist, and advocate for the disabled.
He set out on his round-the-world trip March 20, 2001, in a specially modified 1991 Chevy Blazer, passing through 20 countries including Ireland, Iran, Pakistan, Australia and Mexico, before returning to Ottawa that October.
He raised $1.3 million on the journey, though his last leg was overshadowed by 9/11.
Nemesvary said the trip got the most attention in India where he was mobbed by residents and local media played the story on the front pages.
"By the time we got from New Delhi right down to Madras, bottom of India, so many people, literally hundreds of millions of people, knew what was going on," he says. "We probably got a better reception, reaction to what we were doing in India than we did in our own country."
The biggest disappointment, Nemesvary says, was feeling as though he was never able to convey to the able-bodied the difference between a quadriplegic and paraplegic.
Nemesvary himself is a quadriplegic, meaning the extent of the injury to his spinal cord is such that though he can move his arms, he doesn't have use of them.
Despite the letdown that lingered after getting back home, he is proud of the accomplishment.
"To this day, if you asked me what's the hardest thing I could do, it would be doing that," he says. "To drive around the world, in my state, you know, carry home the message."
For more information on Nemesvary and the 'Round The World Challenge, visit www.roundtheworldchallenge.ca.