Bill Hattan
"When I woke up from a 45-day coma, I looked around my hospital bed at all the tubes and monitors, and said, 'Gee, I must have had a really bad day.'"

So recalls Bill Hattan, 44, who was hit by a speeding motorist while calibrating blinking signs in a work zone Aug. 9, 2002.

Although the Portland, Mich. man smiles in telling the story, waking up in a hospital was far from a laughing matter. His 28-year-old coworker had been killed instantly, and Hattan faced more than 50 surgeries - including amputation of both lower legs - before he was truly "back on his feet."

But the National Director of Intelligent Transportation Systems is back, literally on his feet. Hattan lost his legs last November, was fitted for prosthetics in January and began learning how to walk again. But that wasn't his only goal.

Hattan wanted to do more than just walk. He'd watched his wife, Jane, run the 2004 Detroit Free Press Marathon and was intrigued by the wheelchair racers. He wanted to try wheeling, with the goal of joining Jane at Detroit this year.

"I believe Bill's decision to wheelchair race was a huge factor in his recovery," Jane Hattan says. "He had this positive activity to focus on, not the negative aspect of amputations."

Hattan started competing with the Race for the Place 5K April 17 in East Lansing, and flipped out of his chair at the start. "A bunch of really cool runners flipped me back and I got started on that first one," he laughs.

When the gun went off for his second race, Hattan put his head down and started wheeling - but his police escort didn't move. Hattan ran into the officer's Harley, flipped out and bent the front frame of his chair. Again, he was helped back into his chair and continued on, wheeling with one arm because the chair went in circles otherwise.

One of the rear tires blew about 200 yards later. An undaunted Hattan finished that 5K, using one arm on a flat tire, with a finish time he called "dismal."

The Crim was his third race, and his first one with other wheelers.

"That was an eye-opener for me," he says. "I saw all their aerodynamic helmets and how good they were at maneuvering their chairs. Many of them were sponsored. We took off and I could have sworn some of them had engines on their chairs."

Despite being accidentally flipped from his chair by an aid-station worker and knocking down a Kenyan runner at the finish, Hattan finished fourth in 1:19:15.

Hattan stayed upright for the entirety of his fourth race, the 10-mile Capital City River Run, his last tune up before Detroit. With $12,400 in prize money up for grabs by wheelers and handcyclists there, he expects "world-class competition." But his goals are modest.

"I am hoping to finish strong and enjoy it," he says. "It's special because it is in Detroit, near where it all started." Hattan was hit near I-94 and Joy Road.

"By doing my first marathon in Detroit, I'll have come full circle," Hattan says.

With his goal of 6-minute miles, he won't be the top wheeler. But other wheelers and handcyclists will have the fastest finish times at Detroit. (The first Detroit wheeler in 2004 was Tyler Byers of Tucson, Ariz., in 1:49:40, while the first handcyclist was Krige Schabort from Cedartown, Ga., in 1:26:06.)

Runners who think cruising in a wheelchair looks easy should talk to Hattan's doctors. They say because arm muscles are so much smaller than leg muscles, it's three times harder to race a chair than it would be walk or run the same distance.

"Many amputees say they're going to start wheeling, Bill's doctors tell us, but few follow through with it," says Jane Hattan, "I'm proud of him for sticking with a tough sport."

Hattan is stuck with a tough life too. While some runners wallow in self pity over a nagging IT band or plantar fasciitis, he has found the silver lining in losing his legs.

It would have been easy, understandable even, for Hattan to crawl under his bed covers and hide from life. Instead, he's decided to live it.

MR