After a life-changing car accident, Dan Wischnewski has chosen to not let the pain define his life.

Wischnewski, now a speaker and published author, was born and raised in Winnipeg. On May 15, Wischnewski was on his way to a work meeting: "I was driving south on 206 and Garven Road intersects with it. What happened was, there were two fellas driving the truck, they blew the stop sign and they hit me at 100 kilometres-plus-an-hour."

The father of three suffered a punctured lung, broken knee, broken leg, two broken hips, broken shoulder and more injuries.

"I was trapped in that car for about 70 minutes," says Wischnewski. "Those guys were working so hard to get me out - a normal extraction takes about 30 minutes. I was so wedged into the car that it took that long to get me out."

Wischnewski's fiancee, at the time, received the call from RCMP about his accident, but his stepdaughter had already seen a photo of the accident on the community Facebook page from witnesses.

Wischnewski had gone through one type of recovery before. "For about 20 years, I suffered from a cocaine addiction," says Wischnewski, "I was in and out of different recovery programs throughout those years and nothing seemed to work for me, so I wrote my own recovery program and that's how I got clean.

"The difference before, when I was in my addiction, I had so many near-death experiences - self-induced. ... Since I turned my life around I've got a beautiful wife, I love my son who is 11-years-old, I have my stepdaughters who I love. ... This is entirely different for me."

Wischnewski says, "It's such a long process. I've got another year before I get to, maybe, eighty percent of what I was."

The pain, Wischnewski says, was nearly unbearable while in Critical Care. He could barely move without screaming. Despite the pain, Wischnewski was not going to let his life stop.

"I had two major goals," says Wischnewski. "One, my stepdaughter was graduating from Nursing, so my goal was to be fit enough that the hospital would allow me to go on a two-day pass to Brandon. I got a little bit of physiotherapy there, but I trained a lot in my bed. ... They gave me some exercises to do so I did them nonstop because I was not going to let my stepdaughter down.

"My second huge goal was to be able to walk a little bit and stand for our wedding ceremony - which I was able to do."

Wischnewski says it wasn't easy, but he fulfilled both promises. On August 10, Wischnewski stood to get married to Tracy in front of all their friends and family.

Despite his accomplishments, Wischnewski was still in pain: "The pain was so incredible for the first three months and then on July 1st ... I decided that I just can't live like this anymore because I can't have pain owning my life. So I decided right there and then I'm not going to have pain anymore."

Since then, Wischnewski's life has not stopped: "So, I still feel it, I just don't let it control me." He goes to his son's football games, takes his wife out on dates, and works towards being healthy again.

"When you feel love like that it just gives you strength."

"My family has been there every step of the way," says Wischnewski who credits his recovery and mental strength to his loved ones.

Wischnewski says, "I would be able to survive any of these experiences, but I never would have been able to - physically I could, but in my heart, it would have been so hard to do this on my own."

"Obviously it's not something I wanted to happen, but so many good things have come from it. It's brought my family closer than we ever were and we were already close."