Summit Daily/Kristin Skvorc Amy Sabreen holds the Emmy Awards program Wednesday at the base of Breck's Peak 8. Sabreen's documentary, "Triumph of the Spirit: Conquering Spinal Cord Injury," about former Breckenridge snowboarder Matt Wyffels won her and other producers the award at the New York ceremony.

BY KEELY BROWN
March 30, 2006

BRECKENRIDGE - Four years ago, Breckenridge competitive snowboarder Matt Wyffels was involved in a horrific snowboarding accident that left him completely paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors told him that he would live the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.

Just recently, that same wheelchair was auctioned off on eBay. Thanks to a new Physical Therapy regimen, the Sit Tall Stand Tall program, Wyffels has not only gotten rid of his wheelchair, but is walking with only the aid of leg braces, which he hopes to shed as well sometime in the near future.

Wyffels' story was documented on film last year by Amy Sabreen, marketing manager for Breckenridge Ski Resort. Earlier this month, the documentary won Sabreen an Emmy in the New York market - and continues to win Wyffels a legion of fans.

For the last four years, Sabreen has been an associate producer for the PBS series "Keeping Kids Healthy," a program co-produced by her parents, Susan Berger Sabreen and Richard P. Sabreen. A friend of Wyffels,' Sabreen pitched his story to her parents, who immediately realized the importance of featuring him on the show. The result was "Triumph of the Spirit: Conquering Spinal Cord Injury," an episode devoted entirely to the courageous story of Matt Wyffels and his ongoing recovery.

"It's an amazing story, because he is 100 percent paralyzed from the waist down and now he's walking and he even got on his snowboard again," Sabreen said. "It's such an inspiration, seeing the way he's taken this horrible experience and transformed it - and proven everyone wrong."

Since much of the episode was shot in Breckenridge, Sabreen set up interviews and video shoots, organized the story line, and even shot some of the video. "I wanted to make sure that both Matt's story and Breckenridge were portrayed accurately, and in Matt's best interests," said Sabreen.

The highlight of the show occurred when spinal cord injury specialists working with the late Christopher Reeve came on the program to meet Wyffels and evaluate his progress.