A body builder by trade, Shane Dyck's dreams of competing on the world stage came to a screeching halt two years ago.

On Aug. 27, 2013, his motorcycle collided with the centre median on north Main Street.

The 23-year-old went flying over his bike and landed head first into a cement planter. Dyck said he doesn’t remember the crash.

“I honestly have no clue; I was comatose for about a week, and I’d wake up in the hospital, I’d look around at my family members and friends and they'd be crying and I had no clue why they would be crying or like why I was in the hospital,” he said.

Eventually, doctors told Dyck he was paralyzed from the neck down,

“I was given less than a one per cent chance of walking again. I broke 28 bones and I lost five litres of blood.”

During a 13-hour surgery, doctors fused Dyck's spine together with four rods and 22 bolts.

“I told myself I would walk again and I told the doctors I would. So I put a lot of work into it,” said Dyck.

He spent six months in hospital relearning how to breathe on his own, sit up and eventually walk.

“I went from a walker and a harness, to just a walker, to two canes, one cane and now I’m using no canes,” said Dyck.

Over the next two years, he slowly regained function. Eventually Dyck was able to transfer his hundreds of hours of physiotherapy from a hospital to a fitness centre.

“He's working with a different nervous system and you're learning to adapt that nervous system to work with what's available to you,” said Steve Moerman, one of Dyck’s physiotherapists.

By the time Dyck stopped the therapy sessions in 2015, his improvements were shocking.

“The progression is so grey as to how far you can go. Little things make a big difference,” said Moerman.

Now, two-and-a-half years after his life-altering crash, Dyck is training for his first body building competition.

“I'm a little nervous to say the least," he said.

He hopes to land a place on the podium and win the “Iron Will” award handed out to competitors who show perseverance and overcome impossible feats.

“Obviously I might not be able to sprint again and play sports as competitively as before, but I'm never going to stop trying,” said Dyck.

He competes in Winnipeg on March 19.

Dyck has another surgery scheduled after his competition. Doctors will complete a leg reconstruction, moving tendons to make his ankle stronger, so it can lift on its own again.