29-year-old Latter-day Saint Aaron Fotheringham was born with spina bifida and has undergone 23 surgeries throughout his lifetime to correct or improve some of his physical limitations. But in spite of all of that—or maybe because of it—he has more guts for the extreme than most of humankind.
Fotheringham’s determination to not let his physical impairments stand in his way of having epic experiences was on full display last week: he landed a front flip off a 100-foot ramp on the premiere episode of NBC’s America’s Got Talent: Extreme.
Fotheringham is better known in extreme sports circles as “Wheelz” and competes as a wheelchair motocross athlete as well as performing all kinds of jaw-dropping stunts around the world.
His incredible landing actually came on his second attempt. On his first try, he had a painful, skidding face-first crash, but told judges Simon Cowell, WWE superstar Nikki Bella, and X Games legend Travis Pastrana that he was fine—and then asked to try again.
After he landed safely, the crowd and judges were on their feet screaming in joy. Judge Simon Cowell hung his head in relief and told host Terry Crews he actually felt sick. Cowell and Bella both agreed that the entire performance was an emotional experience.
The stunt was truly mind-blowing and led to judge Nikki Bella to hit her Golden Buzzer, sending Fotheringham straight to the finals. “You define why we made this show in my honest opinion,” Cowell said. “This is what we were looking for. You are an amazing person. You have every chance in winning this.”
You can watch his entire Golden Buzzer performance in the player below:
