St. George man with one leg climbs 23 flights of stairs in 'Stair Climb' challenge

ST. GEORGE — Chase Kelly stood at the base of the Stairs at Tech Ridge on Sunday to complete what he had set out to do the day before. With crutches under his arms and his leg on that first step, he made his way up the 300 stairs to the top, and then he did it one more time.

Kelly, 29, has one leg as a result of a near-fatal car accident in 2014. And last Saturday, he set out to complete 25-laps (15,000 stairs up and back) as part of the second annual Dragon Stair Climb Challenge. He was well on his way to doing just that when his leg gave out.

"I'm getting revenge," he told KSL. "I couldn't go any further (on Saturday). There was not enough Icy Hot, Tiger Balm or massages that could get my leg to start working again. I made it 23 laps (13,800 total stairs)."

Kelly said he felt equal parts defeated and proud of what he had just accomplished. And as he looked back on his life, he said he saw God every step of the way.

The accident

"I lost my leg on Sept. 29, 2014 ... about a month after I turned 17," Kelly said. "It was about a month into my senior year, and my stepbrother and I decided to go to McDonald's on Sunset (in St. George). We'd probably done that hundreds of times. This time, we went to the top of this hill that goes down straight to our house, and I had a bad feeling. I verbally said to my brother that I had a feeling something bad was going to happen."

What happened was that the car Kelly was a passenger in was T-boned by another car, ejecting him with his leg still caught in the door.

"When I saw the headlights, I closed my eyes. It was the first thing I could think to do," he recalled. "It felt like I was being rag-dolled.

"After everything felt like it settled down, the first thing I thought to do was to move my arms and my legs. I could move my arms and right leg, but not my left. So, I thought my leg was broken. I reached down to my left leg, and I just felt warmth. I knew it was bad. I was sure that this moment was my last."

Kelly recalled that night as he lay there waiting for help, telling his stepbrother his final goodbyes. He said that he had a moment of self-realization of the person he was becoming.

"I grew up with an addict dad and really not a great childhood," Kelly recalled. "A lot of that carried with me when I moved to St. George with my mom. I was really negative. I had a lot of issues with my attitude. I wasn't grateful. I was not seeking God.

"God was really quick to humble me as I was laying in the street, realizing the condition I was in," he continued. "I came to this moment of realizing, this is really how it's gonna end. I started saying my goodbyes. The craziest thing in the world was how peaceful I felt at that moment."

Kelly recalled waking up in the hospital with "white coats" all around him, and one of them telling him that they had to take his leg.

"The first words I said as a man with one leg was, 'I am alive!' I could not believe it," he said.

Over time, self-realization turned into self-loathing. Life got hard with one leg, and Kelly admitted that he started to fall back into old ways of being. And as he became a father himself, he had another perspective shift, and he said that he wanted to be a better example to his son.

"After I lost my leg, I fell into that theme of people taking care of me," Kelly said. "I got really lazy and lost focus. What I thought I was going to do for a living was no longer an option. I gained a lot of weight, and in 2023, I got a divorce. I realized all the things I was doing wrong, and I saw the man I was becoming. I would tell my kids all these things about who they should be and who I wanted them to be, but I wasn't showing any good examples of that."

Climbing his way out

In January 2025, Kelly heard about the first annual Stair Climb Challenge held as the official opening of the Stairs at Tech Ridge. That original race, he said, started a fire in him that set him on a yearlong trajectory of bettering himself physically and spiritually.

"This is the first race I've ever done in my entire life," he said. "The first time I came out here, I was 278 pounds. I made it halfway up, and I went back down. I decided I was going to do this every single day. I've been coming out here almost every day. I lost 78 pounds from 2025 to now.

"I also found God back in August of 2025," he continued. "I started going to (a non-denominational) church. It's made me who I want to be, or who I'm going to continue to chase to be. The race was the perfect thing for me. I didn't want anything to come of it besides people seeing that this man is here because of God. I wore my 'God did' shirt. I wanted people to understand that God's the one who brought me here. Even when I look back at when I wasn't a man of God or seeking God, I can realize he was there the entire time.

"I don't want people to see my story as motivation, but as another human just like they are who went through it and pushed through it like anyone else can. I'm nothing special in any way."

Kelly said that now that the stair climb challenge is over, he plans to continue going up the stairs every day and has his sights set on completing an ultramarathon.

Related topics