20-year-old raising money for a new wheelchair after crash that left his car ‘skewered’

BLACKFOOT – Driving to work on a cold November morning, a local 20-year-old’s life changed forever in a split second.

Karter Robison had just graduated from the College of Eastern Idaho almost six months before, and was on his way to Blackfoot on Nov. 5 from his home in Pocatello, to go to his job as a welder.

“I was going to Blackfoot at like four in the morning, and I guess I dozed off, closed my eyes for a second, and the road curved to the right. I drove right into a construction zone on I-15,” Robison says. “I hit a pile of asphalt, and my car basically jumped on top of a bunch of beans, and it like skewered the car.”

Robison’s girlfriend of four years, 19-year-old Paisley Peterson, says Robison always texts her when he gets to work. That morning, she didn’t hear from him.

“I woke up at like 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m., and saw that he didn’t text me. Luckily, we have Life360, so I was able to check his location and saw that he was on the side of the road for like an hour and a half.”

Peterson says once she saw Robison had been on the road for so long, she decided to go looking for him.

“I called him a few times, and he didn’t answer, so I just started driving toward his location. I looked on (Idaho 511) and saw there was an accident, so I started freaking out a little bit,” Peterson says. “I didn’t tell anyone until I got to (Robison’s) car. I was the one who called our families to tell them, so they were all able to meet us at the hospital like ten minutes after the ambulance got there.”

Robison doesn’t remember much from the aftermath of the crash, but says it took first responders almost two hours to get him out of the car.

“When I first remember being in the car, I remember not being able to feel my legs and having lower back pain. As time went on, the back pain grew worse,” Robison says. “I started to feel my sternum in my ribs … I cracked my sternum, and I completely broke off my tailbone as well as a spinal injury with (two) broken vertebrae.”

Robison was eventually transported to Portneuf Medical Center, and from there was flown to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake, where he had a ten-hour surgery to try and repair the damage.

“I didn’t really start to feel it until maybe a couple of days after surgery,” Robison says. “I am unable to walk or stand without any assistance. I can’t just like, stand up out of bed in the morning and stuff like that.”

After a 46-day hospital stay, Robison was finally released to go home, but the challenges aren’t over.

“We have to drive to Salt Lake every weekend because they’re the closest place that specializes in spinal cord injury for physical therapy,” Robison says.

According to Peterson, many of the clinics in Pocatello refused to treat Robison because they lacked the experience and specialty doctors to treat him.

“I want to walk again, but I’m also realistic, and I understand the seriousness of the injury, and how often people recover from it,” Robison says, “It’s not a very common thing to recover from. It happens, but it’s just very uncommon.”

During his recovery, Robison requires a wheelchair to get around, but currently only has access to a manual wheelchair that requires him to push it himself. But his doctors have strongly recommended that Robison get a power wheelchair that will keep him from needing shoulder surgery in the future.

“The therapist keeps saying that your legs are completely different than your shoulders, and your shoulder joint isn’t meant to push a wheelchair around all day,” Peterson says. “People who have spinal cord injuries often have to get shoulder replacements and stuff because of how consistently they use their shoulder. Having a motorized attachment will take some of the stress off his shoulder and prevent further injury.”

Because Robison is so young, and he will likely be using the wheelchair for an extended period of time, doctors are trying to prevent him from wearing out his shoulder. Unfortunately, insurance will only cover part of the cost, leaving Robison to come up with thousands of dollars to afford the wheelchair he needs.

How you can help

Robison’s family has organized a GoFundMe to raise money for a motorized wheelchair and travel costs to and from Utah for treatment, and hopefully a full recovery. Click here to donate to the GoFundMe.

“I’m getting stuff back as time goes on, so (doctors) are optimistic, but there’s no way to tell me if I’m going to be able to walk again or not,” Robison says.

During his recovery, Robison says he’s been able to lean on his family and friends for support and urges anyone else in a similar situation to keep pushing through.

“Without family and friends, we probably wouldn’t be able to do this stuff for sure,” Robison says. “With somebody in a similar situation, (if) you’re given a bad hand, you just have to do it. Do the best you can, keep your head up, and try to keep moving forward. The world doesn’t stop for you.”