The Ride of His Life
Will Matay built a life in the Navy and underwater as a commercial diver. Then a diving accident changed everything — and the hardest part was being heard.
Will Matay wants you to know something before we begin: his story didn't start with his accident. He survived a childhood and family trauma most people never have to carry, got himself out of a small town and into the Navy as a hull technician and welder, and built a hard-won career as a commercial diver — doing the underwater work most of us never see, often in near-total darkness. He had a wife, a daughter, a life that was already his. Then a diving accident changed the course of it. He could no longer work. He faced serious health problems, disability, and PTSD, and his family lived through all of it alongside him. What followed wasn't a quick recovery story — it was years of learning a new way to live, and a long fight to be heard. He wrote about all of it, including the hardest parts, in his book, Roller Coaster Ride of My Life.
A life he built
Will forced his own growing-up. He got into the Navy at 17, did eight years, took everything he could from it, and set himself up to get out with a plan. After the Navy came commercial diving school and a spot in the California union that almost no one gets — he kept showing up, kept bugging the operations manager, until one day the phone rang and he was on a plane to his first job in El Salvador.
The dive
Diving, Will explains, is usually done in near-zero visibility — most of the time you can't see your hand in front of your face. The day of the accident was a rare, crystal-clear reservoir and a simple 19-minute job. As supervisor, he and his partner flipped a coin for who would dive; Will won. He went down, took the measurements, and was called up to a decompression stop. From ten feet he stood, took three steps, and collapsed — from the chest down, it was as if a switch had been turned off.
"Had I not physically seen my abdomen, my leg, I would not have believed they were even there." — Will Matay
A decompression chamber on site briefly brought feeling back; then, over seven hours, the numbness climbed. At the hospital he was triaged as a "truck accident" and nearly left in a curtained bay — until his wife walked in and he sent her to get a nurse, a doctor, anyone. Getting to the hyperbaric chamber is what stopped the ascent of the paralysis and kept him from becoming a quadriplegic. Three tears along his spinal cord, the worst swelling pinching off at T6. He became a paraplegic that day.
Talked through, not to
One of the quiet, constant indignities Will names is being talked through — people addressing whoever is standing beside his wheelchair, even after he's rolled up and introduced himself. Depending on the day, he lets the thoughtless ones roll past. But for the ones who look over him or speak around him, he makes darn sure they know who they're actually talking to.
The family who lived it
Will is clear-eyed that his family went through this with him. A man built by the military and by diving to do things himself, no excuses, suddenly couldn't sit on the edge of a bed without help. His daughter, who'd known him as the father who got things done, watched that change; his wife carried an enormous load. It took years, not an overnight recovery, to learn a new way of living — and, hardest of all for him, to learn to ask for help. He credits that growth for how his family came through it, together.
"I have no problem asking for help now. We've all evolved — and it's over time." — Will Matay
The fight to be heard
Years of walking on crutches — "more a controlled fall than walking" — did further damage, and Will needed major spinal surgery. After three years of the VA agreeing he needed it and nothing happening, he made an outcry for help, emailing congressional members, representatives, the governor, and the VA commandant. He got attention — and then twelve days' notice for major surgery with nothing arranged: no case manager, no rehab, no transport, no supplies. When he asked for time to set up his own care, his record was marked "refused," pushing him a year or more to the back of the line. So he fought for a second opinion — and got one from an Army medical center with no ties to the VA.
"I advocated and I pushed, because I knew not to do that. And I was right." — Will Matay
That second opinion revealed a far more harrowing surgery than he'd been told — two operations, a medically induced coma, blood transfusions, five to seven months of inpatient rehab. He chose a different path: a pain-stimulating device, implanted weeks before this conversation, that has him about 80% pain-free. It doesn't undo the damage, but it spared him a far harder road.
What his story leaves you with
Advocate for yourself — a second opinion can change everything.
Asking for help is strength. It takes time, and that's okay.
You can grieve what you've lost, live with uncertainty, and still have a voice in what comes next.
Why he wrote it
Will didn't set out to write a book — he wrote stories, one at a time, over seven years, as memories surfaced and connected. It isn't about one trauma, or two; it's about wanting to get through it, getting through it, and getting help to do it. Now a grandfather, he's releasing it as an audiobook too — even though he can't make it through hearing his own chapters read aloud — because someone out there needs it.
"Get through it. Never give up. Fight. That's what my book's about." — Will Matay
Key moments
"It didn't start with the accident." The life he built first.
Out at 17. The Navy, and forcing himself to grow up fast.
Into the water. Diving school and a hard-won union spot.
The dive. The coin toss, the decompression stop, the collapse.
The triage room. Advocating to avoid becoming a quadriplegic.
Talked through, not to. Being seen in a wheelchair.
The family who lived it. Learning, over years, to ask for help.
Twelve days' notice. The "refused" mark, and the fight for a second opinion.
Why he wrote it. Get through it. Never give up. Fight.
Leave a review
If Will's story reached you, a review on Apple Podcasts helps someone whose life changed in ways they never expected find their way to the show — one person at a time.