Fergus Farrell has begun a 3,000-mile walk across America after doctors once gave him a 5% chance of ever walking again.
The 46-year-old Irishman, who was paralyzed from the ribcage down in a 2018 workplace accident, set off Saturday from the Brooklyn Bridge on a 75-day trek to the Santa Monica Pier. His journey, dubbed Fergus Walks, will span 11 states and roughly six million steps.
“If anybody tells me I can’t do something, by God, I’ll do my damndest to do it,” Farrell told The Post. “It’s all about taking a small step at a time.”
Farrell’s path to this moment began on Oct. 26, 2018, when he bent to lift a metal bench while overseeing his fleet of 35 buses and felt what he described as a “massive explosion” in his back. He collapsed, unable to feel his legs, and was airlifted to the National Spinal Unit in Dublin. There, surgeons found he had ruptured two discs, one nearly severing his spinal cord completely.
When he woke after surgery, the connection to his feet was still gone. A surgeon delivered the grim prognosis: move within 72 hours for a slim chance at recovery, or face permanent paralysis. For three weeks, nothing. Then, on day 21, a tiny toe twitch changed everything.
“That was a massive moment for me,” he said.
Rehabilitation brought months of agony, morphine dependence, and incremental progress. When staff planned his discharge with a wheelchair and home grab rails, Farrell rejected the plan entirely. “That’s bulls–t,” he remembers thinking. He gave himself three weeks to walk out on his own.
“I broke myself, but I broke myself in a great way,” he told The Post. “I was there to do a job.”
Home in Galway brought new battles. Confined to a wheelchair, his marriage crumbling, he spiraled into darkness and nearly ended his life. A friend’s intervention led to a week in a psychiatric ward — “the best thing I ever did,” Farrell said. “I found out, for the first time at 39 years of age, who I was, not what I was.”
That clarity sparked transformation. Though he could barely walk 300 meters, he committed to crossing Ireland on foot for the first anniversary of his rehabilitation discharge. He also weaned off morphine. “It was either live a life in pain and be myself, or live a life where I don’t know who I am,” he explained.
In the years since, Farrell has rowed seven marathons, run four ultramarathons, and attempted a 2022 Atlantic paddle crossing. He still manages “24/7 nerve pain,” poor balance, and no reaction skills, but his perspective on the accident has inverted completely.
“If you would have asked me two years after the accident what I thought of it, I would have told you it was one of the worst days of my life,” he said. “Now, if you ask me, it was the best day of my life, because I’m a lot better of a person than I ever was,” He added: “I value everything I have rather than being envious of what I don’t.”
The current trek supports the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and Spinal Injuries Ireland. Farrell will push through mountains, deserts, prairies and farmland at roughly 80,000 steps daily, supplied by a volunteer crew in a chase car. Hotels will host him where available; remote stretches mean van camping. He expects to destroy eight pairs of shoes.
“Anyone who’s fighting addiction, disability, whatever it may be, just take a small step at a time,” he offered. “All those small steps add up. The next thing you know, you’re in a place that you could have never imagined.”
Farrell’s motivation is deeply personal. “When I walk across America, it’s to create awareness for people living with spinal cord injuries, but it’s also for my kids,” he shared. “I want to show them that when you get up and work hard, you can do whatever you want.” He also holds out hope for connection with strangers: “Maybe they’ll come have a walk along the road with me. I hope they do.”
In the viral moment that first brought Farrell broader attention, he walked across Ireland on the first anniversary of his accident, ending at the very hospital where doctors had said he’d likely never move his legs again. That 128-mile feat, undertaken when his walking remained severely limited, established the pattern of defiant endurance that now carries him across an entire continent.
Farrell’s cross-country route will continue through multiple states as he maintains his daily pace toward the Santa Monica Pier.
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