LAFAYETTE — For six-plus years — Sam Primeaux has displayed great strength — mentally just as much as physically.
And in recent years, Primeaux has gained a new level of gratitude. It comes from a life-altering incident that changed his mindset.
"It completely crushed me. I wasn't in the best mental space previous to it so with that I just started to feel like I was on my own", says Primeaux. "I was a free bird. I just graduated, I was going to work full time and build a life for myself and that just stopped me dead in my tracks."
In 2017, Primeaux was involved in a motorcycle accident, the impact forcing him into the ground. Doctors confirmed he was paralyzed from the chest down.
"I was riding home one evening, got caught in a patch of rain and an older guy was coming down the opposite lane to turn and I guess he didn't see me so he cut out in front of me to make his turn. I slid about 10-20 feet and when I hit the truck, I dove over it, kind of like a swimming pool. I smacked the asphalt. I had a full face helmet, it shattered the jaw piece, shattered three of my vertebrae together."
After little to no progress during rehab, Primeaux was dropped from his insurance after 8 months. But that wouldn't be the end of his story.
"My insurance company, the medical professionals around me, they're throwing in the towel... why should I keep fighting? But someone told me whenever you let someone sets your limits, that's when you're limited."
Fast forward to 3 years of improvement, Primeaux was still wheelchair bound, but fitness had become his go-to. He would lift, be able to stand longer and even walk with help. His brand, "Inner Animal" was then born.
"Fashion is not my strong suit at all, but being able to inspire people is. So my goal is to try to make Inner Animal a symbol of hope, a symbol of motivation, a symbol to just fire you up. I want people to put on my products and just feel stronger and understand that they have something within them and it they unleash it, they can do some amazing things in life."
Just as Primeaux has continued to conquer rehab, that's how he plans to achieve his dream goal.
"My big milestone that I'm going for is to climb Pikes Peak, a mountain in Colorado. It's not typical that you see someone in a wheelchair trying to climb a mountain but when someone asks whats your rehab goal? Is it to walk, to stand or to run? I say it's a lot of those but lets shoot for a lot further beyond."
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