Walter Boynton

Residence: East Greenbush
Age: 56
Family: Wife, Diane; Sons, Justin (33), Brandon (30), Joshua (28); Step-Daughters, Madelyn (18), Molly (16)
Career: Retired firefighter/EMT
Primary Sport: Rowing

By Alex Kochon

Three days a week at 5:30am sharp, you can find Walter Boynton on the water, rowing with eagles above him and his teammates beside him on the Hudson River in downtown Albany. A retired firefighter and emergency medical technician for the City of Gloversville, he’s always been an early bird. As a new member of the Albany Rowing Center, he’s an inspiration for others.

Five years ago, the man affectionately known as Walt suffered a life-altering injury to the T2 and T3 vertebrae on the upper part of his spine. He described it as a “freak accident,” which occurred when he twisted wrong, causing a slow rupture in his spinal cord that took nearly a week to discover. “I started out with chest pain,” Walt recalled. “We were loading fire hose, and I thought, ‘Maybe I just pulled a muscle or something like that.’”

He went to the doctor and had his heart assessed with an electrocardiogram, which didn’t detect any issues. “A couple days later, I couldn’t feel my left side, and I was having problems walking,” Walt continued. “When I couldn’t feel my left foot, I told my wife, ‘Something’s going on. We need to go to the ER.’”

At Albany Med, a neurosurgeon discovered the damage to Walt’s spine. While it’s not degenerative, it has dramatically impacted his ability to move freely. He uses two crutches, which he calls “sticks,” and has an electronic device on his left leg to help him walk. “I’ve lost a lot of functions on my left side,” he said. “I’m in pain every day, but I live with it because what else are you going to do? But the rowing has helped with a lot of different aspects.”

Before this past May, Walt, who now lives in East Greenbush, had never used a rowing shell – a long, narrow boat used for racing or exercise. Growing up on Great Sacandaga Lake, he raced canoes, paddling over 70 miles in the world’s longest single-day flatwater canoe race on the Susquehanna River at age 14. Even so, rowing felt different. For one, the boat is much tippier; a missed paddle stroke can flip the shell and dump the rower. Second, rowers face backward, which adds a dimension to steering. 

Following his injury, Walt mainly walked and swam for exercise. The 56-year-old said he wasn’t fast, but he could get around. He also used gym machines, like the stationary bike and stair stepper, but was craving something more to get back into shape. In April, his wife sent him a link for a Learn-to-Row program with the Albany Rowing Center.

Walt contacted the nonprofit club, explained his injury, and asked if they might be able to accommodate him. ARC coach and president Rebecca Clark fielded his inquiry and began researching adaptive rowing. The ARC didn’t have an adaptive-specific boat, but they had one that had been in storage for nearly a decade that might work. It was big, heavy, and required two people to carry it, but it was also stable – possibly stable enough for Walt to get in and out of.

Before Walt joined the Learn-to-Row program, Rebecca suggested he try it first. “I said, ‘Why don’t you come down, and we’ll just try some things out, and if it looks like you can get into a boat, we’ll take things from there,’” she said. “‘We’ll take things one practice at a time and see what we can do and keep the options open.’”

On his first day, with help from a couple of club members, Walt successfully got into the one-person “single” shell – which is no small feat. Getting into the boat can be difficult for able-bodied rowers as it involves getting down to ground level and scooting onto the seat while balancing on water. The seat usually slides back and forth, and rowers use their legs to propel themselves while moving the oars in sync, but the seat in Walt’s boat was stationary. Using his upper body alone, he set out on the river.

“The balance from the boat actually comes from the oars,” Rebecca explained. “They stick out eight feet on either side of the boat. It’s kind of like balance for a tightrope walker. When you get in, you always have this initial moment of discomfort because you feel like you’re going to be swimming in 30 seconds, and Walt was no different from anybody else…”

He recalled having a “death grip” on the oars and staying very close to the dock at first. He progressed to rowing along the other side of the river, where he stayed within 10 feet of shore, just in case he fell in. 

Four months later, he’s gained enough confidence and experience to row for 90-minute practices and is now a member of the ARC Masters team. He entered his first para-rowing race in late July, a 1,000-meter distance at the Overpeck Summer Sprints Regatta in New Jersey, and won. “It was a great feeling going to do my first race because we had our whole rowing group there, and everybody wanted to carry the boat down for me and cheer me on,” Walt said.

“What just has touched me time and again is the entire team has come together to support Walt,” Rebecca noted. “Everyone was incredibly excited to see him race. The whole team was really involved. It was very powerful for everybody to see him follow through with that experience.”

Walt said he feels encouraged and energized by the support of his teammates, which his wife jokes are “his people.” At the same time, letting others carry his equipment and help him in and out of the boat had been an adjustment for the former first responder, who had served others for 17 years. “Probably the hardest thing is to let people help me,” he said. “You’ve just got to ask people to do things for you.” 

He does his part by cleaning the oars at the end of each practice, driving the launch boat alongside his teammates, and using his construction background to help with any building projects. At the club’s “Fungatta” in August, he used his grilling skills to feed the masses.

On Sept. 18, Walt plans to compete in a 3,200-meter race at the ARC’s Head of the Hudson Regatta. After the season ends, he hopes to join a rowing club while living in Florida this winter.

In the meantime, the ARC is accepting donations for a lighter, more efficient, and better equipped adaptive rowing shell. Rebecca said an adaptive shell costs roughly $8,000 but could greatly aid Walt and any other para-rowers that join the program in the future. “Without having someone there to row it, we wouldn’t really have a reason to go out and start finding equipment for adaptive rowing,” Rebecca explained. “But now that Walt’s there and he’s committed, part of being successful in this sport is having good working equipment, so we’re eager to see what we can do with finding a better boat for him.”

Essentially, Walt planted the seed for para-rowing in the Capital Region, and the ARC will do everything it can to nurture it. “We’re a nonprofit organization, and our mission is to facilitate rowing, so we’re open to anyone in the community who’s interested in rowing,” Rebecca added. “We don’t want to have to close the door for anybody. We’ve opened up this possibility, and we’d make it available to anyone if there’s a way for us to reasonably accommodate them.”

For Walt, rowing has helped him build physical strength and stamina, while also helping him regain a sense of purpose. “I’m not just waking up in the morning to drink a cup of coffee; I’m waking up to get out and go rowing,” he said. “I’m going with this group of people and doing something that I actually enjoy – enjoying nature and the river and seeing bald eagles flying around.” 

Rebecca said his commitment had motivated other club members as well. “You’ve got to have a pretty good excuse to not show up when you know that Walt’s going to be there, working his butt off, no matter what,” she said.

There’s one caveat: “If you see the eagles, you’re not working hard enough,” Walt said with a laugh.

General donations can be made online and go toward equipment purchases, including an adaptive shell: albanyrowingcenter.org/donate.

Alex Kochon (alexkochon@gmail.com) of Gansevoort is a freelance writer, editor, and outdoor-loving mom of two who enjoys adventuring in the Adirondacks.