In the corner of the emergency room, David Tims, a 52-year-old paraplegic with an American flag bandanna tied around his head, watches a nurse ready a bag of intravenous antibiotics.
Tims came to the George E. Wahlen Medical Center the previous night when his leg became inflamed with cellulitis. Since he was paralyzed 31 years ago, he has suffered from a number of illnesses that build over days and nights and finally break his tolerance to withstand the pain. This time, he said his usually numb right leg felt like it would explode.
Tims got out of his bed in Murray, rolled his wheelchair up a ramp into his converted Toyota Sienna minivan and drove to the hospital. The doctor gave him a dose of antibiotics and said to return the next day for more.
"I'm here for that happy juice," Tims says to his nurse in a raspy smoker's voice. His fire-orange sunglasses and blond ponytail cut a stark contrast to the three other men in her care. They are lying shirtless on examination tables next to him, all suffering from chest pain.
"I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you. I'm fixin' to go on an 11-day Mardi Gras type thing on Friday. It's your typical guy stuff. We'll be chasin' girls and gettin' drunk. I just want to make sure my antibiotics aren't goin' to mess this up."
Tims does not mention the impetus for the trip: the National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Spokane, Wash., which started Sunday. It is the largest annual wheelchair sports event in the world, with more 500 athletes participating this year.
Tims has competed every year since 1988, medaling more than 50 times in bowling, swimming and track.
He turns back to his nurse who is connecting the bag to a hose running into his hand.
"You're sure this is gonna be cool?" he asks one last time. The nurse is sure. "All right then. Put that baby in into high gear."
Meet David Tims. He is an alcohol-drinking, cigarette-smoking wheelchair athlete who will once again represent a state renowned for its pious sobriety.
Beneath this self-proclaimed hedonist is a man who has never resigned woefully in his wheelchair to the circumstances he has been dealt.
Tims was paralyzed in 1978, three years after he left the Army. He was jump starting his '67 Mercury Cougar in a parking lot in Modesto, Calif., when it dropped into gear and toppled him.
He talks about the accident as is if were a small, almost negligible bump in his road. He reclines on his custom-made wheelchair built with shock absorbers and mountain bike wheels that plow through dirt and grass.
"It's never really affected me, no," Tims says. "I had a positive attitude about the whole thing."
Six months after he was injured, the hospital staff awarded him "most positive paraplegic," he says.
For the past 11 years, Tims has been the only athlete representing Utah at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games, sitting alone beneath the state's flag in the opening and closing ceremonies.
The Department of Veterans Affairs and Paralyzed Veterans of America host the games every year for disabled veterans, with sport events ranging from table tennis and archery to basketball and swimming.
To some, the games are a casual affair. A quarter of the athletes this year are first-timers who made the trip because a physical therapist pushed them hard enough. Their focus, more than clinching a medal, is on figuring out what life can be like as a disabled veteran.
Then there is Tims. The games are the mainstay of his entire year. He begins training in January, starting with upper body resistance workouts at a neighbor's gym and transitioning to eight-mile workouts on the track at Taylorsville High School.
This year, he will compete in five track events: the 100, 200, 300, 800 and 1,500 meters. Without a doubt he will return with five medals, he says.
Tims is driving up with a friend, but has no family joining him.
He has three sons whom he barely knows. His ex-wife took them when they were young, and they were placed in state custody when police found methamphetamine in her home, Tims says.
One of the boys is living near the Washington-Idaho border, only a few hours from where Tims will compete, but he has not seen him in 17 years.
Tims called and left messages to tell his son he would be close, to see if maybe he could drive west and see the competition. But he never returned Tims' calls. If it saddens him, he does not say so. Spokane is far west from where his son lives, he explains.
In the early morning after his visit to the emergency room, Tims pulls up in his minivan for a final practice on the high school track.
Attached to the back of his car is a new, $23,000 racing chair the VA purchased for him in April.
His brother, Jeff, helps him unload it from a bike rack. The chair is 6 feet long but weighs only 8 pounds. With a small third wheel sticking out in front, it looks more like a jogging stroller than a wheelchair.
It is a clear and cloudless morning. A few children are walking on the track. One runner is sprinting on the straightaway.
Tims takes a warm-up lap on the outside lane. He grabs the wheels and thrusts the top half of his torso forward, propelling the chair. He can get up to 25 mph, he says, but he is not going to try anything grand like that this morning. It is too easy to blow out his shoulder.
Two boys point at him as he passes. One yells he wants "something like that."
"I'm not handicapped," Tims says on a break. "I am able to still do things. I can't go run the 50-yard dash, but tell you what, I can roll the 50-yard dash. I don't live on a machine. I go out and I experience life, and I share my life with as many people as I can."
Tims takes two more laps. It beats him up like a good job, but he loves it.
"I'll race till I can't. I'll keep goin' year after year until they tell me no," he says.
It has been a long week. Tims calls it a day. This week will be even longer.
e-mail: mgonda@desnews.com