It would be easy to call the small town of Faith, South Dakota, a place that’s rooted in belief. Yet 18-year-old Tyler Martin doesn’t put anything to chance.
“Life is short and you can’t take every moment for granted,” Tyler said. “You’ve got to take every opportunity to the best of your ability.”
“He’s my perfectionist,” said Billy Martin, Tyler’s father. “There’s nothing that I send him out to do, that if it ain’t done perfect, he’ll go change it to make certain it’s perfect.”
Growing up on the family ranch in Faith, Tyler’s had a blue-collar mentality since childhood, where actions speak louder than words.
“Tyler’s our gentle giant,” Billy said. “He’s got the most genuine heart and personality, hates to displease, and everything he does is to help somebody else.”
Tyler’s consideration for others has always been steady, especially when you consider the moment it all shifted.
‘I had to be calm in that moment’
December 18, 2023: Just like any other Monday, Tyler starts heading to Faith High School around 7 a.m. The first leg of the journey covers nearly 20 miles of gravel road before Tyler heads north on South Dakota Highway 73.
“It was about 20 minutes before I got to school,” Tyler said. “I was going up the hill, I was close to the yellow line. I remember looking up and my whole screen of the car was covered with the truck and I was out.
“I woke up in the ditch and realized I was in a crash. It took about three minutes for someone to show up and I said, ‘Ma’am, I need you to call 911. I’m OK, but I need you to call 911.’”
“Coming up to the car, one of the firefighters met me and said, ‘We have it under control,’ obviously wanting to see what state of mind I was in,” Billy said. “I said, ‘I know you got it and I’m coming to help you.’”
Photo courtesy of the Martin family
“The first thing I noticed was his leg bone was snapped through the skin,” Billy added. “At that point, they were (applying a tourniquet) to the leg.”
“I broke my hip too,” Tyler said. “My left arm was dangling. I didn’t even know it was broken at the time because my left leg was smashed and the adrenaline was going.”
“Tyler was as cool as a cucumber,” Billy said. “He didn’t scream. He didn’t cry. How? I have no idea.”
“I had to be calm in that moment,” Tyler said. “I can’t be moving or crying or something like that because that just makes the situation worse.”
After nearly an hour, first responders were able to free Tyler from the vehicle and load him on to an emergency helicopter.
“At that point, I don’t know, the adrenaline wore off and I dry-heaved and puked in the ditch for quite a while,” Billy said. “After seeing one of your kids in that predicament, I’m really glad I was there to be able to visit with him.”
‘I’m just tickled to be alive’
The left side of Tyler’s body was shattered, but his spirit never wavered. After multiple surgeries and seemingly endless rehab, the smallest task became one of his biggest triumphs.
“It was a slow process to learn to walk again with the left leg,” Tyler said. “Four months of a wheelchair, that was enough sitting, that’s for sure.”
“I told him, ‘Man, I wish there was something I could do for you buddy,’” Billy said. “And he goes, ‘Dad, I’ll deal with it. I’m just tickled to be alive.’ So, that was his mentality. It made the process so much easier that a kid stuck in that position never got sour about it.”
Tyler had always been athletic, participating in rodeo and wrestling when he was younger. But just before the accident, Tyler had finished his first year of high school football. While his injuries forced him to miss the following season, the call of the gridiron kept growing louder.
“I didn’t really think football was going to be the dream because I was really into rodeo and stuff,” Tyler said. “But once that accident happened and I really started liking football and the contact of it, I knew God changed it.”
“I said, ‘It’s funny you mention that because we can go to this Sanford Fieldhouse to play,’ Billy said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”
Photo by David Brown, Sanford Health
Elite training prep
The Sanford Fieldhouse in Sioux Falls hosts a variety of athletes across a multitude of sports, including an annual high school football combine which allows players from across the Midwest to showcase their skills in front of college coaches. Before the combine, a six-week Elite Training Prep course is also offered where athletes train on six consecutive Wednesday evenings.
“We wanted the kids to have a chance to excel,” said Kurtiss Riggs, lead football academy specialist with the Sanford Sports Academy. “You can spot right away the kids that do the program because what we’re working on is the drills they’re going to do in the combine.”
In the spring of 2025, less than 18 months after his accident, Tyler signed up for the Elite Training Prep and the combine. The commitment to six straight Wednesdays of training was one thing, but simply getting there was a whole new ballgame. Tyler and Billy would drive five hours each way, from Faith to Sioux Falls and back again, all in one day.
“To cheat death like he did and then to have a goal in mind, I told him I’d take him anywhere he wanted to go,” Billy said.
“I’m just kind of sleeping and trading off with my dad driving here and there,” Tyler said. “It was kind of rough for the first few weeks, but then I started to get used to it.”
“We talked to him about ‘do you want to stay? Do you want us to line up a hotel?’” Riggs said. “(Billy said) ‘No, we got work to do on the ranch the next day.’ You knew right away that Billy passed down a very strong work ethic to Tyler.”
After the six weeks of training, Tyler’s journey culminated in the combine on April 25, where he put up impressive numbers in multiple drills. He hopes that performance in front of college coaches will put him on track to play at the next level in 2026.
“It went really smoothly,” Tyler said. “Honestly, I feel better than a couple of years ago.”
“I said, ‘Are you glad we brought you down here?’” Billy said. “He goes, ‘Man, I am so excited. I love the atmosphere. I love the physical contact.’ So, it was huge that we got to go down to it.”
Tyler’s senior season of high school football is now here. While his dream is to stay on the gridiron in college, his time to make an impact is endless. His drive is off the charts and much like the town where he resides, his faith is right at home.
“To watch him take life like that and run with it and enjoy it and do what he’s done, it inspires me,” said Katie Martin, Tyler’s mother. “From the start of his Sanford journey to the combine alone was like night and day.”
“It was really fun just to go up there, put the work in, and get back to the sport I love,” Tyler added.
“Tyler’s going to be successful in whatever he does,” Riggs said. “To overcome what he’s overcome, he’s beat things that most of us will never, ever face.”
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Posted In Emergency Medicine, Sanford Sports, Sports Medicine
