Bright Side: An extraordinary veteran visited Yuma to tell his story

A men’s night at Champion Church brought veteran Eric McElvenny to Yuma to share his story of overcoming the unthinkable.

Captain Eric McElvenny was proud to be serving the Marine Corp., it was his dream as a kid and impacted him deeply.

Then while leading a team of Marines in Afghanistan the unimaginable happened.

“I heard an explosion underneath me and that resulted in the amputation of my right leg, below the knee,” said McElvenny.

His seven years of service were cut short because he stepped on an I.E.D., an improvised explosive device.

“When I realized that I wasn’t sure how bad it was. I thought it might be dying. I thought maybe I was going to be going to heaven. it wasn’t necessarily scary. But then I thought of my wife and daughter. That’s when I got a little bit nervous.” said McElvenny.

His team of Marines came to his side and that’s when he knew he would be taken care of.

In the hospital, he did not let the situation get him down. He leaned on his loved ones.

“They expected me to be the same man that I was before. The same dad that I was before. Honestly, their support was motivation for me to heal up.” said McElvenny.

While in his hospital bed, he made a goal to participate in an Iron Man race.

“I was still in the hospital. So, I had to kind of break it down into different milestones. I had a wonderful team, surgeons, doctors, physical therapist, my prosthetic practitioner. Two months in stood up on my first prosthetic leg. At about 5 months or so, I was able to start running and at eight months I ran a race. It wasn’t an Iron Man, but it was a small triathlon. I just continued taking steps in that direction. Finally, at 22 months I got to run my first Iron Man.” said McElvenny.

After he competed in the Iron Man race, his life went down a path he did not expect.

“I think just that movement, going from what seemed like a tragedy to this big step. people saw that and they saw the story in it and they asked me to share that. So, little by little I just didn’t say no and I would go and share a little bit of my life with people and realized that it was having an impact on people.” said McElvenny.

The now father of three says that not only was he helping people, speaking was a form of therapy for him.

“And then a really big thing is talking about my service and my experience where I could see it being very easily, easy to keep it inside. And I think that would be for me, that would have been dangerous. so for me, to actually talk about it and share with people and for them to share stories with me as well.” said McElvenny.

Things came full circle for McElvenny when he visited Yuma last week. He was able to host the men’s night at Champion Church and visit local Marines.

McElvenny was able to go on a run with the Marines stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station and then tell his story.