CEDAR CITY — A man who sustained a traumatic head injury in a skateboarding crash a little over three months ago has since made remarkable recovery.

Chase Peace, the pen name by which he now prefers to be called, met up with Cedar City News at a Dairy Queen in Cedar City on Feb. 15, a few days before he was scheduled to move back to Southern Nevada.

“I made a miraculous recovery,” the now 40-year-old Peace told Cedar City News. “I’m almost healed. I have left ear hearing at 25%, no taste and no smell. Besides some dizziness, I feel blessed to be above ground and not a vegetable.”

Peace was hospitalized with traumatic head injuries after crashing his motorized skateboard on the sidewalk near 337 S. Main Street on the afternoon of Nov. 18. He doesn’t remember anything about the incident.

“I have a six-week memory gap, from two weeks prior to the accident, I can’t remember anything,” he said. “And then for about a month afterward, or two weeks after I came out of the coma. It was then that my memory started coming back to me.”

Among Peace’s more significant injuries were a large vein in his brain that had been severed.

“It was slashed,” he said. “The doctor said he’d never seen that before.”

He also sustained multiple broken bones in his skull and inside his left ear. That has caused him to have some lingering equilibrium and balance issues, he said.

“If I move my head suddenly, the room starts spinning a little bit,” he said. “I’ve gotta be careful.”

Nevertheless, Peace said he was about to take his dirt bike out for a spin later that afternoon, for the first time since his accident.

“I’m just gonna putt-putt around, just take it around the block or whatever,” he said.

Peace’s recovery journey is also one of redemption and making peace with himself, he noted.

“I did quite a few years in the (Nevada) state penitentiary and the federal system as well,” he said. “Eighteen years, actually. And I made the conscious effort to let the experience make me and not break me.”

During his incarceration, Peace said he worked on improving his writing skills.

“I focused on studying how to learn to write,” he said. “And it wasn’t an immediate gratification. It was an investment for my future.”

Last August, Peace published the first installment of a gritty semi-autobigraphical novel called “Sin City Skeletons,” which is available via Amazon for $19.99 for a hard copy or $5.99 for the Kindle e-book version. 

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, may be true for a tourist,” states the brief teaser blurb on the book’s back cover. “But when you’re born and raised in the devil’s playground, and when the conditions are just right, what happens in Vegas is a closet bursting with skeletons.”

Peace, a native of Las Vegas, said he’s currently working on getting the next installment ready for publication. The narrative is essentially one book split into two parts (in fact, “Sin City Skeletons” abruptly ends halfway down the the 141st and final page, right in the middle of a sentence).

“I just published what I had, which was half the book,” he explained. “And the other half, I’m typing it now. And depending on if I get picked up by a big publisher, and in between now and me finishing it, either it will be combined into one, or possibly Book One, Book Two, and maybe Book Three.”

Peace said his primary goal as a writer is to develop a genuine connection with his readers.

“You know, like, I’m speaking to you, telling you stories,” he said. “I’m there with you, talking to you. You’re walking with me.”

Asked about the main takeaway advice he’d give about his crash, Peace acknowledged that he should have been wearing a helmet while skateboarding that day.

“Know your limitations, be aware of your surroundings. know what’s coming up, know what’s ahead of you,” he said, adding, “Normally, I do a good job at that.”

Peace called the crash a life-changing event and said he’s lucky and grateful to be alive. He appreciates all those who’ve supported him throughout his recovery.

“I’ve made some bad decisions in my life and when I have needed the support it was unavailable to me, which is understandable, for the life that I lived,” he said, adding, “However, I’ve changed. I have a kind and caring heart now and I have developed some wonderful relationships while I’ve been here in Cedar City … I’m very thankful they supported me when I needed it, with this bad traumatic brain injury that I went through. So thank you to everybody who prayed, supported and cared for me to survive in my survival.”

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