The Hazard Ground with Mark Zinno and Matt Pascarella Interviews Colonel Patricia Collins on Their Podcast

What is Meaningful Travel?

The opportunity to meet amazing and inspirational individuals like our friend Colonel Patty Collins.  Her story is one of accomplishment, perseverance and trailblazing. 

Compliments of Rutgers Magazine

LTD has a Mission to “Make Meaningful and Healthy Travel Happen”, but what is meaningful travel?  In this case, “Meaningful” is meeting amazing individuals like Patty Collins, who despite having had a portion of her leg amputated, persevered to become a champion in the grueling Ironman competition and a participant in the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

What makes her so inspirational besides her magnetic personality????  Six weeks after U.S. Army Colonel Patricia Collins returned home from a deployment in Iraq, she was struck by a car while riding her bicycle to work at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Ten grueling months later, at the age of 38, she made the decision to have her damaged left leg amputated below the knee. At the time, Collins LC’91 was mainly concerned with learning to walk with a prosthetic leg. Breaking a world record in the triathlon was not exactly a top priority.



When did we meet her?  At the Intermedix Ironman 70.3 in Augusta, Georgia, during 2013— where having swum 1.2 miles, bicycled 56 miles, and run 13.1 miles—in five hours, 32 minutes, and 41 seconds, she smashed the existing world record for a female unilateral amputee by three and a half minutes.

We have spent many a meaningful event with her including the Tampa Bay Frogman Swim where she swam on our team twice to benefit the Navy SEAL Foundation.  She is a true trailblazer and we are honored to know her!

She went on to be a member of the 2016 US Paralympic Paratriathlon Team and competed in Rio de Janeiro.  Even more meaningful is that at the Tampa Bay Frogman Swim, Patty was awarded the LT Dan Cnossen award, who happens to be a fellow Paralympian. 

Recently Patty spoke with The Hazard Ground Podcast, hosted by sports talk radio host and Army veteran, Mark Zinno, and produced by Mark’s good friend and fellow Army veteran, Matt Pascarella.  Here's what they had to say about their time with Patty:

"As someone who was rising through the ranks and performing at a very high level in the Army's top tier, elite special operations unit, Patty Collins never thought she would suffer an injury that would end up taking her leg, when she wasn't serving in a war zone. But, in 2006, while riding her bike to work on Fort Bragg, she was struck from behind by an automobile. The marathon runner and triathlete, survivor of multiple combat tours, and recipient of both a Senior Parachutist Badge and the Military Free Fall Jumpmaster Badge, was now facing injuries and excruciating pain that would eventually lead to the decision to amputate her left leg. Undeterred from continuing to serve on active duty, Patty would go on to complete over 24 years of active service and retire as a Colonel. Hear her very powerful story on this latest edition of HAZARD GROUND!"

Click the Photo below to listen at The Hazard Ground! 

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