Christian Wenzel published his book, “Beauty in Brokenness: Life Beyond Legs,” about his experiences as a paraplegic following a hunting accident in 2012. 

Wenzel was the art teacher at Black Hawk Middle School in Warrenton and an avid bowhunter before his accident. 

He had been hunting a friend’s land in Warren County after school and had his eye on a trophy buck that was moving through the area frequently. One afternoon in October of that year he was scouting for a new hunting spot on the property and realized conditions were too good to pass up. 

“I didn’t plan on hunting that day, I was just scouting because I was going to set up where (the buck) came out,” said Wenzel. “I noticed there was a cold front moving in, I saw some clouds and looked at my phone and said oh, this is good weather coming from the northwest.”

He rushed home to retrieve the rest of his equipment and made quick work of getting outfitted when he returned. 

In the rush, he forgot to put on his safety harness. 

He returned to the spot, and used a climber to settle himself into position about 20 feet up in a tree. 

While he was getting situated, he heard movement off in the distance and felt it had to be the deer he was chasing. 

“Everything that started as routine, was no longer routine. The routine was more, I just gotta get going,” Wenzel said. 

He elaborated saying in that moment he had three options, to descend from the tree and abandon the hunt, wait to move until the deer passed and hoped he would see it again, or make an adjustment to his position so he could shoot. 

Normally, making adjustments to positioning in a deer stand or on a climber is routine, but without a harness, it can quickly become dangerous. 

When Wenzel started to apply weight to his seat again, it gave out, and he fell 20 feet uninterrupted onto the forest floor. 

The fall paralyzed him from the waist down, and left him with collapsed lungs and broken bones throughout his body. 

In those moments, Wenzel said he started to make his peace, and thought of his daughters. Then he remembered he had his phone in his front pocket on his bib and was able to call a rescue. 

He lied on the forest floor for 23 agonizing minutes and was passed once by a search team before he was discovered. 

“They passed me up once, and it was completely devastating when I heard them drive past me,” said Wenzel. 

Shortly afterwards, rescuers came across him and he was airlifted to a hospital, where his battle was only just beginning. 

Following his accident, the recovery process became a struggle, as Wenzel suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and his marriage began to deteriorate. 

It was at these times that he felt he had to document his experiences. 

“Our family didn’t understand and didn’t have the playbook for how to deal with this, and I don’t think many paraplegics have that playbook,” said Wenzel. “They might have bits and pieces of it, and I just started documenting what had happened, how I felt.”

He said he began to feel alone, and distanced from friends and family, who he felt could not understand what he was going through. He lashed out towards those who were close to him and in 2019, he and his wife divorced. 

Following those events, Wenzel said he was able to find solace in his faith, and work on returning to the person he wanted to be. 

“My faith did falter when the divorce happened, but I regained my spiritual fervor. I became more connected to Him, and I needed more time to reflect,” said Wenzel. 

He said in the book’s pages, readers can discover how he was able to return to a healthy place, both mentally and spiritually. He hoped that people could learn something from his experiences, especially if they had been impacted by a similar accident. 

“There’s a lot of people that are going to encounter this same thing, and it may not be an accident like mine, but it will still be an accident, and they’ll still be lost, and they’ll still be grieving,” said Wenzel. “And I knew this story could be of some support for others.”

Wenzel’s book, “Beauty in Brokenness: Life Beyond Legs,” can be purchased on Amazon in paperback and hardcover varieties and can also be read online through Kindleunlimited. 

“That is what my goal is, to hopefully help people find peace in their brokenness, beauty in their brokenness, because it is there, and they’ve got to look for it,” said Wenzel.