On April 14, 2010, while skating across Australia to raise cancer awareness with Skate4Cancer, Rob Dyer was sideswiped by a car. As a result Rob was forced to postpone the skate and return to Canada. Last week, I met with Rob to find out how he is doing now. 

The last time I saw you, you were injured and boarding a plane in Melbourne on your way back to Toronto, what happened once you got home?

I had a layover in California for two days because of some volcanic ash from Iceland. I was stuck at the airport for an entire day then they put me in a hotel, so that was interesting.

When I finally got home, to sum it up, I just spent about two months in bed watching a lot of Lost and just trying to rest up and heal.

You were forced to leave Australia in order to get proper medical treatment. What have the doctors in Canada told you about what happened?

I just went in and had an exam. They talked with me about what happened more then anything, and they checked the area. They knew right away that there were no broken bones or anything like that. They did an ultrasound on the area as well, just to make sure there is no damage to other parts. It was interesting, I have never had an ultrasound done before so that was kind of different.

Besides that there wasn’t too much long-term damage, which is awesome! It was just tears and a pulled groin.

How has skateboarding been since the accident?

After feeling a lot better, and feeling like I could walk again, I stared skateboarding. Soon after, I realized there was swelling in a certain area of my grown and it started to develop into little swelled up balls. I ended up having to go back to the hospital. They gave me a lot of medication [laughs], but its fine now and it is gone again. I just don’t know if I can skate again just yet.  Other than that everything is good now and I feel awesome.

How long after the accident was it before you were even walking again?

I want to say I was walking around my house like four weeks after, but that was just walking around my house. I was using crutches for a bit, but even the doctor said that was only making things worse; holding up my leg was putting a lot of pressure in the area, so straight up like that. The only thing you should be doing is lying in bed.

That is brutal.

Ya, it was extremely frustrating being in bed.

Was that the hardest part of all of it?

Ya, because you are thinking and not doing anything at all. You’re just thinking about a lot of things: about being home, not finishing the skate. You are just constantly thinking and it got really depressing

Wow, I wish I could have been there.

It was all right I had a lot of friends who were messaging and things like that to really make sure that I wasn’t getting stuck in that place. In that depressing and self-destructing place.

What or who helped you out the most to get through it?

My dog.

Blue?

Ya, Blue hung out so much. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Ah! Is he still around?

No, he passed away like two weeks ago.

No, I am so sorry dude!

No that’s okay he got to hang out one last time. It was good. I don’t know who was in more pain me or him. It was his time though. He was like 16/17 years old or something crazy. He was an old man so yeah, it was his time, but he lived an awesome life. 

Ya, he was always partying.

[Laughs] Yeah he was always eating my pizza and partying.

When you got back was everyone here really supportive of your decision?

Yeah insanely.  I think a lot of my friends and family members were happier on the responsibility side of things, for once. In the past I have been pretty stupid and stubborn with trying to finish things or trying to do things and not being well. That is definitely a young thing to do and an immature thing to do because you are not taking care of your body and you are not taking care of your health. Taking care of yourself is really important if you actually want to be able to do more things in your life and you’ll be able to actually make change. A lot of my friends were really stoked to see that maturity come out of this situation.

What are your plans now for completing the Australia skate?

We have a University tour in the fall, and we are trying to get a drop-in center open before we head back to Australia. I will be around for a couple months after it opens to see how it gets going and see how things are working. Then we are thinking of heading back, so it will probably be around February or March. I think we are going to start from Perth this time. We want to break that bad luck that happened and start from the opposite side of Australia to skate across it. 

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Skate4Cancer.com 

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