Friends, family and fans raising funds

x-treme truck Jump:
Driver Aaron Souza takes air in a jump during an April 17 Monster Truck Show in Chico. Souza suffered a partially severed spine upon landing the jump.

The video of a monster truck driven by Anderson resident Aaron Souza at a Monster Truck Show in Chico last month belies the catastrophe that the landing caused.

Souza, who turns 39 on Thursday, May 7, has been racing "tuff trucks" for ten years, said his friend Chuck DiPrima.

"He helped me build my first truck," said DiPrima, who is raising funds to help defray Souza's medical expenses.

"We're always for impressing fans," DiPrima said of the truck show. But on April 17, Souza went overboard.

"He put the pedal to the metal, hit a big jump, and overshot the landing. He landed back tires first. It slammed the front down."

"I hit the jump way too hard and way too fast," Souza said during a telephone interview from his hospital bed.

The landing broke the seat bracket, allowing slack in the harness that held Souza in, he said. The impact left him with a partially severed spine and paralyzed from the knees down.

Now going through three to four hours of physical therapy each day at U.C. Davis Medical Center, Souza said the rehabilitation is exhausting.

"It's hard. I'm literally learning how to walk a second time," he said. "I don't have the motor skills to do it. It's all about trying to reconnect my brain to (the muscles) below my knees."

Souza owns Concepts Customs and Car Audio, an Anderson business on West Center Street. He hopes to get back to work at some point. His friends are running it for him now.

"Without my friends and family I'd be nowhere," he said.

Souza expects to be released from the hospital by May 15, when he is able to walk with assistance, although he'll be in a wheelchair for some time.

"It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm hoping," Souza said.

Aside from operating his auto shop in Anderson, Souza has sponsored an Anderson Youth Soccer League team for six years. He also donated time and materials in customizing the APD's DARE vehicle, a souped-up low rider.

To contribute to Aaron Souza's relief fund, contact Tri-Counties Bank in Anderson or see Souza's MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/aaronsouzarelieffund.