The Day I Broke My Neck: Part 1

My name is Matthew Raynor, and I’m a C5–C6 quadriplegic. This is the story of the day everything changed—the day I broke my neck.

Before my accident, I was a deep-sea commercial fisherman in the Northeast. I fished out of Shinnecock and Montauk—ports in New York. We worked anywhere from Nantucket all the way down to South Carolina, mainly dragging off the coast of Long Island during the summer and fishing the Hudson Canyon in the winter.

Fishing was something I loved wholeheartedly. I think sometimes when I tell people I used to be a fisherman, they imagine me on the back of a yacht, casting a rod into the water, red hair bleached blond by the sun—shining fabulously. Kind of like a character from Below Deck. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was by no means glamorous. The work was incredibly difficult—a marathon with little sleep, brutal weather, whipping spray, freezing cold—and what I loved most of all: nonstop action. And it was dirty. The boats were rusty, the quarters were crowded. But none of that mattered to me. The sea was my muse—and when you’re in love, the details don’t matter.

I felt like I was finally addicted to something beautiful, which—at that point in my 20s—was a bit of a novelty. The endless ocean, the sunsets, the camaraderie, the good pay, and the freedom it gave me—there was no other job that could compete. And it got even better. I would work nine months, save money, and then go travel. I spent one winter in South America, another in Southeast Asia. I was making serious progress filling up my passport with stamps. The beauty of the ocean was compounded by the freedom fishing afforded me to live the way I wanted.

I spent most of my fishing career working out of Shinnecock on different boats, but mainly on the Mary Elizabeth, a 70-foot trawler owned and operated by my best friend at the time and his father. It was a fun, kind of cozy situation. But in the fishing industry, it’s feast or famine—and after a stretch of bouncing between boats, I decided to set my sights on a bigger port, a bigger catch, and bigger rewards. I headed to Montauk and found a job on a 90-foot trawler named The Perception.

When it came to my fishing career, I felt like I had arrived. The Perception was an ace highliner—an elite fishing boat. I remember being amazed by the quantity of fish we were able to catch. That sounds great, sure—but it also meant we had to process those fish. That meant moving them into the fish hold, boxing them, icing the boxes, and stacking them six high. The work was extremely strenuous, and The Perception fished through serious weather, which made everything even harder.

One of my first nights on the boat, I was up in the wheelhouse on watch during a storm. It was pitch black—I couldn’t see a thing through the windows. The wind howled through the rigging as the boat pitched and rolled in 10- to 14-foot swells. The captain had instructed me to jog the boat six miles in one direction and then turn it around. When the time came to make the turn, I froze. I was struck with a wave of paralysis—I couldn’t move. I thought, If I turn this boat, we’re going to sink.

Of course, that wasn’t true. The captain and crew made fun of me for the next week and a half.

Having to box and ice up to 70,000 pounds of fish in the belly of the boat—all while being tossed around by a winter storm—is brutal on the body. We often strung together three or four weeklong trips back to back, with just a short break in port to pack out and fuel up. That meant weeks of sleep deprivation, muscle strain, cold, wet gear, and endless physical punishment. You couldn’t coast. You couldn’t ease up. You just had to keep going.

In the past, I had broken both of my wrists, and because of that, the repetitive strain of the job would flare up a chronic tendinitis. If you’ve ever had it, you know how painful it can be—that intense elbow pain when you hold something and then release it. And the more you work through it, the worse it gets. There’s really only one cure: rest and TLC.

Unfortunately, when you’re on deck, you can’t just say, “Hey Cappy, my elbow hurts. Can I take a bunk day?” Especially not on a boat like The Perception. I felt lucky to have that position—it was a coveted job in Montauk, and the paychecks were proof. But after a few weeks of grinding through the pain, it was time to rotate crews and captains. That meant I could finally collect my paycheck, grab my backpack, hop off deck—and head home.

I lived just down the road from where I would break my neck. I had a tiny apartment above a surfboard shaping shack. My landlord was a great guy—a fellow surfer. I got into this routine where I’d wake up early—it was April at the time, so the water was cold—and go for a morning polar plunge. The freezing water soothed my tendinitis, and it also made me feel alive. I was always chasing thrills, and even a daily plunge into the frigid Bay gave me what I needed.

The day I broke my neck was stormy. There was a gale blowing, a full moon overhead, and the rain had just stopped. I woke up, picked up my friend Jerome, and we headed to the beach for our usual plunge.

What I didn’t know was that it would be the last time I would ever feel my body the way I once did.