It was Saturday afternoon, Aug. 4, 2007. It was the day Scott Adams made the life-changing decisions that he’ll have to live with forever.

Adams, who is from Farmington, N.M., was in El Paso for the week because of his job. He said him and his friends spent the day drinking, and an argument with his girlfriend prompted him to take off on his motorcycle.

Adams remembers wearing a tank-top, shorts and flip flops. He wasn’t wearing a helmet.

“I remember there were two cars (on the road). I remember splitting the two cars. I was going real fast, and after that, I remember waking up in the hospital a month later,” said Adams, who lived to tell his story, but is now paralyzed from the waist down.

Adams and his parents drove in on Tuesday afternoon to revisit the crash site where he nearly lost his life almost a year later. He is also here to visit the police officers, witnesses, nurses and doctors who played a part in his life that day.

“Knowing myself and knowing how drunk I was, and having it not been my first time, I was probably doing 140-150 mph,” said Adams as he looked toward Gateway North Boulevard near Transmountain Road.

Lori Calderon was one of the drivers he cut off as he raced down the street. She recalls seeing the entire crash in slow motion. Adams slammed into the guardrail head-on and went airborne for more than 50 feet.

“I thought I had watched him die. I just got out of my car, and he was laying face down on the pavement in a puddle of blood. His legs were shattered, hurled … torn. It was terrible,” said Calderon who met Adams for the first time this week.

Adams spent a month in a coma at William Beaumont Army Medical Center, where doctors saw his chance of survival very slim. They pumped nine to 11 units of blood in him during surgery. He miraculously lived.

A few days after the crash Calderon heard on the news that Adams was still clinging to life. She said she felt a sense of relief, and dropped off a get well card at the hospital.

But Adams' road to recovery would be a long one.

“The worst injury of all was I ripped my aorta. They said I left my knee cap somewhere on the road,” he said as he pointed to the scars on his knee. “I shoved my leg bone through my ankle. My ankle was completely shattered. I've got a metal ankle now. I've got solid rods in both my legs from my ankles to my knees. I've got a plate in my pelvis,” said Adams.

“They weren't sure if this arm was going to be on or not. They thought it might have been severed,” he said as he looked at the scar tissue on his arm.

After being released from the hospital, Adams spent a month and half in therapy where he relearned how do talk and move.

Adam used to be left-handed, but he hasn’t been able to move his hand since the crash and awaits more reconstructive surgery.

In the months following the crash, Adams said he fell into a deep depression. He would lay in bed all day, and said he wanted to give up the fight to continue living. But it wasn’t his time to die.

Adams wants to share his story with others and hopes his experience can save someone else from the pain he's going through.

“Miracles happen, but this is how I'm going to be the rest of my life. In the blink of an eye, anything can be taken away from you that quick. It wasn't the bike, it was the drug and alcohol problem,” said Adams.

El Paso police said Adams' blood-alcohol content when he crashed was .22, three times the legal limit. Officers pressed DWI charges against him. His case is still pending at District Attorney’s Office.

Adams is now working with the police in his hometown. He wants to tell his story at area schools.

“If someone else can learn from the mistake I made, maybe they won't make the same mistake,” said Adams.