Watching Liam Wagner race down a hill at Greek Peak, you’d think he’d been doing this his entire life, but that isn’t the case. It was just a few years back when he first learned to ride his custom-made monoski, built to allow those with limited mobility in their legs to still enjoy skiing.

“The first day I went out, I really took to it quickly. It reminded me so much of a dirt bike and I was able to get up onto the mountain and I was skiing the whole entire day. You couldn’t get me off the mountain," said Liam Wagner, Binghamton resident.

But life wasn’t always like this for Wagner. He was in a motorcycle crash back in 2016 which would limit the use of his legs and make it nearly impossible to walk again.

“I was in an unfamiliar area and I went around a corner I never go around and I ended up getting wrapped up around a guardrail. When I wrapped up around the guardrail, it ended up breaking my L4 vertebrate," said Wagner.

Years later, Wagner was introduced to CBD products, an industry that he now works in. It’s been a miracle for both his physical and mental health, and has aided significantly in his recovery.

It took years to find a solution that truly helped him, and now, he’s not turning back.

“About a year and a half after my accident, we really were getting to a point where I was taking a lot of hard medication still and we needed to get me off of it or at least to a lower point. I was having a lot of side effects because of it,” said Wagner.

CBD and medical marijuana have allowed Wagner to live a full life once again. But at a cost of $90 a week for most medical marijuana programs, not everyone in the spinal cord injury community can afford them.

Now with recreational marijuana legal in New York, Wagner says a large population is finding it much easier and cheaper to recover.

“I just think that it’s such a great thing now that it’s recreational, more or less for my community, the disabled community, who needs this product. It’s medicine. It’s not just a fun thing to do. It’s a product that helps people through each day and get off all of those harder medications," said Wagner.

Through hard work and recovery, Wagner was able to walk a mile with just crutches, and you can bet next winter, he’ll be back on the slopes once again.