Warren Ray has always been a bit of a stubborn guy, determined to prove others wrong when they told him he couldn’t do something.
He’s also always been athletic.
Ray’s determination faced one of its greatest challenges in 2002 when an accident while he was in the military led to 80 per cent of his body being burned.
“I lost multiple digits on my hands,” Ray said. Eventually his left foot was also amputated.
After the accident, Ray thought he would never be able to work out again. The nurses in Toronto who treated him, however, wouldn’t have it.
“They wouldn’t let me quit,” Ray recalled. “The nurses there were not in the military, but they acted like it...they were really hard on me, in a good way.”
Ray couldn’t walk when he first got back to the gym. At the time, he didn’t yet have a prosthetic foot, so he had to get around either by using crutches, or by crawling.
“I went to the gym on crutches...crawled on my knees to get around because it was faster,” Ray said.
He said going to the gym takes a lot of stress away, and it helps him feel accomplished.
“It makes me feel good...it makes me feel confident,” he said.
It certainly wasn't easy getting back into the gym, and Ray said he felt insecure. But he soon realized something about going to the gym – everybody there is working towards a goal, meaning they aren't yet at the point they aspire to be, and in that sense, he said, everybody is starting at the same spot.
“There aren’t many things in life you can say that about,” Ray said,.
He said the gym is the most open place in the world, and there’s something there for everyone.
Now, Ray said he practically lives at the gym, and through it all he met his good friend Stefan Hall who owns Rebel Fit Nutrition in Williams Lake.
Hall trains for strongman competitions, and Ray soon found himself giving it a try.
Ray can’t do all the events in a strongman competition, but he’s sure to have done all the events he's capable of. He competed in his second ever strongman competition in May at the Eighth annual Cariboo’s Strongest in Williams Lake.
“Warren exceeded his limitations and deadlifted his heaviest, personal best 320 pounds,” wrote his wife, Cherie Ray, in an email to the Tribune. “A man with so many limitations yet he defied them all. This is inspiration at its finest.”
“If I didn’t become disabled, I would never have gotten into this,” Ray said about participating in strongman competitions as well as powerlifting, which he also does.
"Being physically disabled limits you...but if you’re open-minded, it’s limitless in other aspects."
