Scott Rigsby is running for his life.

The Atlanta, Ga., man joined an elite group of world athletes when he finished the Ironman competition in 2007, swimming 2.4 miles, biking another 112 miles and running a 26.2 mile marathon all within the 17-hour window. 
And he made history when he became the first double amputee to complete the world championship Ironman contest in Hawaii.

But competing is about more than crossing the finish line, Rigsby said. Someone could come along and repeat the feat or better his time of 16 hours, 42 minutes and 46 seconds. “I’m not the end, I’m the means to an end,” Rigsby said. “I don’t want this to be just about me. It’s bigger than me." Rigsby says it's about faith and being an inspiration to others, about helping other physically challenged athletes and wounded veterans, and about raising hope and raising awareness through the Scott Rigsby Foundation.

It was his inspirational message that prompted First United Methodist Church of Ypsilanti to invite Rigsby, 41, to speak at a public presentation this Sunday, March 14, said Marty Heator, a member of the congregation who helped arrange the visit. “The thing about Scott is that he not only set a goal for himself, he is committed to inspiring others. We think people in this area will respond to his message,” Heator said. Rigsby will also speak with veterans at the Ann Arbor Veterans’ Administration Hospital and visit West Middle School in Ypsilanti.

Scott Rigsby was just 18 years old when an 18-wheeler hit the pickup truck in which he was riding in the back. He was dragged 324 feet under the truck. "My life radically changed in nine seconds,” Rigsby said. “Nine seconds is how long it takes a truck traveling 45 miles an hour to go 324 feet.” His right leg was amputated immediately, but his family and doctors decided to try to save the left leg, which had been smashed so badly that he had no heel left. Over 12 years Rigsby had 26 surgeries. “I had become a professional patient,” he said.

In 1998, he decided to have his remaining leg amputated. “It was time to get control of my life again, to piece my life back together,” Rigsby said. “Within six weeks of the surgery, I was up and running. Not running fast, but running.” Still, it wasn’t easy. By Christmas, 2005, he was depressed, desperate and sprawled on the living room floor of his parent’s home, thinking about ending his life.

Up until then he had found little comfort in religion. He had been raised in a religious house, going to church two or three times a week, it had meant little, he said. “I hated it,” he said. “It was all about rules and regulations." But that Christmas night, Rigsby asked his mother to pray for him.

“It’s like something hit the ceiling and bounced back to me," he said. "In my desperation, a door was opened and I walked through it.” Rigsby said. Days later, he found himself in the magazine section of a bookstore looking at a story about a woman with an artificial leg who had run a race. Rigsby now had the direction he needed.

“Helen Keller has a beautiful quote: ‘It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision,’” Rigsby said. He had his marching orders. But he wasn’t going to settle for running any race. He wanted to enter “the toughest one-day endurance race on the planet,” he said. Out of shape and overweight, he started from scratch. “I didn’t know how to swim and I didn’t own a bike,” he said.

After a year of training, he entered his first Ironman contest, but had to withdraw after he fell and cracked vertebrae. Six weeks later, he was in Hawaii making his second try to complete the Ironman. “The only way I wasn’t going to make it is if the officials on the course were carrying me off in a hearse,” Rigsby said.

"Unthinkable,” Rigsby’s book about his life, was published last fall. He’s hoping that someday it will be made into an inspirational movie. “It could be like “Rudy,” “Hoosiers” or it could be the next “Blind Side,” he said.

Janet Miller is a freelance writer and a frequent contributor to AnnArbor.com.