The last thing Mark Raymond Jr. he remembers in those final seconds before the accident was standing in the back of his friend’s boat at the end of a perfect July afternoon in 2016 and staring out into the waters of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.
Then he dived in and instantly felt his forehead hit the sandy bottom of the lake.
“I couldn’t move and I realized, ‘I’m probably going to drown,'” Raymond tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “My last thoughts were of my mum and I was just praying that my friends understood what was going on.”
He was close to death when his friends pulled him from the water and performed CPR.
Two weeks later, Raymond awoke from a medically induced coma in a New Orleans hospital to find that he had fractured the fifth vertebra in his neck and was no longer able to walk or have full use of his arms.
“I quickly realized that my life was going to be really different,” he says. “To call it a major adjustment is an understatement.”
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Mark Raymond Jr. in the hospital for weeks after the 2016 accident.
Courtesy of Mark Raymond
But that’s just the beginning of Raymond’s story. A year later, frustrated by the lack of wellness resources available to people like him in New Orleans, the former broadcast engineer decided his hometown needed an adaptive gym for people with spinal cord injuries and other disabilities.
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Aptly named Split Second Fitness opened in 2021, with specially designed exercise equipment and therapy programs that enable clients to develop physically and mentally. Recumbent ellipticals move the legs of paralyzed users, a yoga instructor helps stroke survivors increase flexibility and range of motion, and mental health professionals ease the difficult transition to a new lifestyle.
“Anyone’s life can change in a split second like mine did,” explains Raymond. “What our organization is really focused on is ‘How do we give you hope? And how can I help you turn that hope into action steps for you to create a better tomorrow?’ ”
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Raymond got the idea while spending three months at a state-of-the-art rehab facility in Sacramento that sparked an idea of what recovery could look like.
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Mark Raymond Jr. with his mother Ronda, director of the Quanteria Williams-Porche fitness center and a young client of the gym in 2023.
Studio Colin
“I knew I had to come home and figure out how to do it,” says the native networker, who spent three years fundraising and learning how to run a nonprofit.
“The goal is to increase the quality of life of people with disabilities,” he says. “Because if I can give you something to look forward to, it will help that grieving process and help you get back on track to a happy, healthy life.”
For 22-year-old Ray Walker — who was paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident that killed his mother and aunt — Raymond’s center changed his life.
“It’s more than fitness,” Walker says. “It’s a place where people like me aren’t judged and where I can work towards doing all the things I want to do in life.”
Those who know Raymond, like former NBA player Lance Thomas, whose boat Raymond was on when the accident happened, are not surprised by what he has created.
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“He’s smart, charismatic and great at bringing people together,” says Thomas, a board member of Raymond’s Split Second Foundation, which provides basic services and resources for people with disabilities. “And he managed to turn something bad into something good by helping others.”
Raymond — whose grandfather, AP Tureaud, spent decades fighting for civil rights as one of the only black lawyers in Louisiana — insists he’s just getting started.
“I hope he’ll be proud of who I’ve become,” says Raymond, who plans to open similar gyms across the country. “I want to be remembered as someone who moved the needle on disability advocacy issues.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education