Emma Paden has built her life around challenge, movement and the outdoors. From climbing and trail building to teaching adaptive skiing, she has worked to share that world with her community while pushing herself to conquer her fears on and off the crag.
“She’s just always been driven,” her dad, Brad Paden, said. “She pushes herself. Since she was young, she has just decided that she was just going to work hard and go for it. She’s so strong.”
That dedicated spirit continues to fuel her through the biggest climb of her life: recovering from a spinal cord injury she sustained over the summer.
Emma fell about 35 feet from a climbing wall on June 28 while route setting at a gym she managed and broke her back. She underwent a seven-hour surgery to fuse her spine from T9 to L1.
In the initial weeks after the accident, Emma’s movement and feeling below the hips were extremely limited. But Emma has never been one to let fear win — and she said she isn’t about to start now.
Loving the outdoors
Emma was raised in Elkhart, Indiana, where her love of sport first took shape. She played soccer growing up and on her college club team. Emma then moved to Michigan to attend Grand Valley State University, where she discovered climbing for the first time.
“I was introduced to climbing and outdoor recreation over those four years and I was just very amazed at how cool it was and how free and awesome I felt doing it,” said Emma.
Her degree in recreational therapy set the stage for a career built around helping others experience that same joy in the outdoors. She interned with Higher Ground, an adaptive sports nonprofit in Idaho, before moving to Park City to work as an adaptive ski instructor with the National Ability Center.
In the four years since, she has also spent her summers working on the trail crew with Mountain Trails Foundation, building and maintaining the same outdoor spaces she loves to adventure in.
“Moving to Park City, I just found everybody so kind, welcoming, loving and compassionate. I just love being around those kinds of like-minded people — also pursuing outdoor recreation in their own free time as well as doing it for work,” she said.
Emma’s love for the outdoors became both her livelihood, her career and her personal form of altruism through adaptive sports, like skiing, and trail work.
“I wanted to make my play also my work and show others how awesome it is. And that you can play every day, just have fun, and you don’t have to take life so seriously,” she said.
Emma had one request the day after major surgery.
“Her wish was that she wanted to go outside,” said mom Sue. “Within that first week, they made it possible so she could just roll out to the terrace at the hospital and spend some time outside.”
Emma pushed to return to activity while adjusting to life using a wheelchair, while still in rehab. Through the University of Utah’s TRAILS program, which provides free adaptive recreation for people with physical disabilities, she joined sailing, kayaking and hand cycling trips with her mom by her side.
“It was very exciting to see her be able to continue to participate in some activities recreationally, and ones that she so enjoys. It was a lot of fun,” said Sue.
Road to recovery
For now, healing and recovery are Emma’s priority. She makes the drive to Sandy several times a week for intensive physical therapy at Neuroworx; good friends always ready to help with transportation.
“It’s my full-time job right now to just work on therapy,” Emma said. “Day by day, hour by hour. That’s the best I can do. The good news is, things have been coming back in my legs.”
Life in the outdoors has taught Emma how to push through her fear and challenge herself each day.
“With climbing, I’d developed to a place more recently where I was able to quiet my mind more, so that the fear didn’t win out over my pursuit, or my continuing to move forward,” she said.
She now applies that same mindset to her recovery, using the lessons of climbing to steady herself through the uncertainty of recovery and adjusting to life with a spinal cord injury.
“So yes, when I feel fear that maybe I won’t walk again, or that I’m not giving it my all, I just quiet down and try to move through it. I try the best I possibly can with what I have in that moment with the energy I have in that moment,” she said.
Emma regained movement in her left toes within the last week.
While she continues to overcome incredible hardship, reaching milestone after milestone, putting all of her focus on recovery hasn’t been easy.
“I keep trying my best every single day, and it’s hard. It’s more physically challenging, maybe, than anything I’ve ever done,” she said. “But it’s different. I’m not outside in nature right now, and that’s a struggle for me, because I just want to be in the mountains.”
Her therapy routine is a constant rotation of the available technologies at Neuroworx to help practice walking and stimulate movement. More recently, she has been working on aqua therapy treadmills and with a machine called “The Vector” to help support her body weight while she practices the motions.
“I’ve been able to wiggle my toes. I’ve been able to move my legs more and more. So that’s really encouraging, but it’s hard to say where that’s going to stop,” she said.
Living independently
As she continues to work through the challenges of the last two months, some of Emma’s biggest concerns have been about maintaining her independence.
Securing accessible housing in Park City quickly became one of Emma’s toughest hurdles. After a month of inpatient care, Emma and her mom lived in the National Ability Center Lodge before finding her a suitable apartment in the area.
“It was a struggle to find my current place, and I feel very relieved to be living in Park City, because I love it here. I love the fresh air and the people,” she said.
For Sue and Brad, the idea of Emma staying in Park City after they returned home to Indiana was hard. But it was ultimately the best thing for her and her continued adaptation to living independently.
“Of course, leaving her and her staying in Park City was my biggest concern,” Sue said. “But I realized what a huge network of people, friends and co-workers she has there. It’s just where she wants to be, and it’s where she’s made her life.”
Adjusting to her new living situation was harder still. It was the first time Emma had lived alone without roommates or friends before. The network of support surrounding Emma continues to fuel her progress, she said. Whether it’s friends helping decorate her new space, donating furniture or offering time to help with transportation.
“It was hard,” Brad said. “It was hard to leave her, but at the same time, it’s best for her in the long run and she’ll fight through this. Living independently is difficult, but she’ll get through it, and she’ll be stronger for it, even as strong as she is now.”
The next step for Emma is learning to drive with hand controls so that she can independently facilitate her own transportation around town.
Staying in motion
Through her recovery, Emma continues to give back to the community she built her career around. She participated in the National Ability Center’s Summit Challenge just weeks after leaving the hospital, a fundraising cycling event to support the adaptive sport center.
Emma also completed a 7-mile hand-cycle ride in the Summit Challenge on Aug. 28. She wanted to go push herself further, but Emma had to prioritize balancing the excitement of being back outside with the need to protect her recovery.
“She was always pushing herself to do more and more new things. People were amazed where she was so soon after the accident,” said Sue.
Emma, reflecting on the accident and her path ahead, knows the risks are inherent in returning to activity. But for her, the rewards are worth it.
“Even with all the safety measures in place, equipment can fail anytime, and there’s human error involved. Always there are lots of factors involved with these high-risk activities that we pursue. I still find it worth it. I still find it very fulfilling to conquer my fears and overcome things,” said Emma.
Outdoor sports are an expression and an acknowledgement of life and loving being alive, she said.
“It’s the flow state of being so in the moment, being completely unselfconscious and unregulated, just doing what I’m doing. It brings me so much peace at the end of the day,” said Emma. “When I pursue these outdoor sports, especially climbing, I feel very satisfied and just in love with my life.”
Community events like the Summit Challenge and resources like those at the National Ability Center allow Emma to stay connected to the outdoor world that has shaped her life. Being in Park City, she said, has allowed her to lean on the wide web of support available here through nonprofits and friends alike.
“I’ve found that the thing that makes me feel the most emotional is thinking about all the people who have been there for me. It reminds me I’m not alone,” she said.
Among the many adjustments of the past months, learning to accept and ask for support has been one of the hardest. Like setting sport aside to focus on recovery, it has become another necessary part of healing.
“I’ve always been such a giver. It’s tough to receive, but I keep thinking that, in the future, I’m going to give as much as I possibly can again. I’m really looking forward to paying it forward,” Emma said.
This outpouring of care has allowed Emma to remain in Park City, a place where she is also able to tap into the disability community and make connections with others in wheelchairs and with spinal cord injuries who can support and guide her through these changes.
“I just feel so lucky to be in this area where the systems that we have in place, they’re working and they’re helping, and I’ve greatly benefited from them, and I feel really glad that they’re there, so we need to keep pushing forward for those resources,” she said.
Emma’s recovery depends on accessible housing, medical care, adaptive equipment and community resources. She has leaned on support from her GoFundMe, where donations can be made at tinyurl.com/mtu9s438.
Emma’s path will be marked by steady milestones in the months ahead — driving, continuing intensive therapy and finding new ways to stay active in the outdoor community she has long helped shape.
“If I let fear win in this scenario, I would give up, not give this recovery my full effort or accept where I am, but I just refuse to. I refuse to let that stop me,” she said.