American snowboarder Jake Canter won his first Olympic medal nearly 10 years after a trampoline accident nearly took his life.
Canter, 22, won bronze in slopestyle at the Winter Olympics on Feb. 18, coming in behind silver medalist Taiga Hasegawa from Japan and China’s Su Yiming, who took gold.
The medal comes about 10 years after doctors gave Canter, who was 13 at the time, just a 20 percent survival rate following his 2016 accident on a trampoline, according to his Team USA bio.
Jake Canter on Feb. 18, 2026 in Livigno, Italy.David Ramos/Getty
Canter was practicing on trampolines when another athlete reportedly collided with him in the air, according to a 2019 report from The Summit Daily.
Canter suffered a fractured skull and a brain bleed during the accident. He returned to the slopes the following year, but continued health issues due to the traumatic brain injury continued to plague the young athlete.
According to the Summit, Canter dealt with a spinal fluid leak, which led to bacterial meningitis. He dealt with an intense earache for two weeks, and after Canter’s family found him unconscious in his bedroom, they took him to the hospital. He was then placed in a medically-induced coma, per the Summit Daily.
In 2019, he told the outlet, “I had no clue until I woke up and I thought I was dead.”
Jake Canter on Feb. 18, 2026 in Livigno, Italy.Michael Reaves/Getty
The life-altering accident left Canter permanently deaf in his right ear.
He returned to the sport just months after his release from the hospital. Speaking to the Summit in 2019, Canter said, “When big things happen like that to you…I don’t know, everything feels so surreal.”
Before he hit the slopes to win bronze on Wednesday, Canter showed fans how he prepped for the big day — with a Star Wars lego set. “Finals prep,” he wrote over a photo of the completed set and shared to Instagram Stories on the evening before his run.
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock.
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