After 11 miles, the searing pain becomes too much.

Shards of vertebrae floating around Scott Rigsby’s back ends a leg of a journey. His coach looks on, and the pain is too much for her.

For the former Valdosta State student, it’s the equivalent of a sore throat, causing him to slow down and briefly stop talking to the world, but he will come back with a louder yell.

The injury ended the Atlanta resident’s bid at a historic Ironman. But the reason the Ironman is a historic one for Rigsby is also the reason most pain has little to no effect on the 39-year-old.

On June 24, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Rigsby became the first below-the-knee double amputee to compete in the grueling triathlon event. The Ironman race was one of several stops on the way to his ultimate goal of the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii this October.

Training to run, both physically and emotionally, through grueling challenges without either leg gives Rigsby the will and fortitude to push through any obstacle.

When his first leg was amputated in 1986, the doctor put up a verbal wall that Rigsby would slice through like he does the water on swims of up to three miles.

“When I first got into the hospital, he told me I wouldn’t be able to run again,” Rigsby said.

For a former football player and an all-around athlete, it was more of a challenge than a crushing blow.

In 1986, Rigsby was in a car accident when a tractor trailer hit the truck he was riding in, forcing his right leg to be removed and badly damaging the left. After 12 years and 17 surgeries, he opted for the ultimate pain, rather than dealing with the complications, and had his left leg removed in 1998.

The second amputation allowed Rigsby to move more freely on two prosthetics, but still left him reeling about his purpose.

In December 2005, 19 years after the horrible accident, his purpose in life was realized.

Sitting on his mother’s floor near Camilla, tears running down his face from life’s frustration, Rigsby prayed with his mother for guidance on what to do with his prosthetics-assisted life.

He remembered reading about a girl who completed the Ironman in Hawaii as the first above-the-knee single amputee, and the impact it caused. He also felt the agony he saw in the faces of soldiers coming back from Iraq with missing arms and legs, and felt he could use his tragedy as a symbol for many.

“I just remember praying with my mother and asking God, ‘If You open doors, I will run through them,’” Rigsby said. “Just be careful what you pray for, because I’ve been doing a lot of running.”

Rigsby’s will, along with his tremendous balance, refined while playing football as a nose guard going up against guys that were up to 100 pounds heavier, made him the perfect candidate for being the motivational leader he is.

“Obviously, everyone wants to feel like they’re fulfilling a purpose in life,” Rigsby said. “I truly do feel God put me on this earth for such a time as this.”

Rigsby lives the biblical phrase “such a time as this,” in which a woman saved her country from destruction in Esther 4:14.

With amputated soldiers needing guidance, Rigsby saw a need to start training in 2005. He has since become the first double amputee to compete in an Olympic-distance triathlon, half marathon and full marathon.

Rigsby continues to press on, trying to help others through his actions, thanks to the pain of his past. When the training becomes too much, he just thinks about his older brother.

While Rigsby can no longer use his legs, his older brother, Tim, has suffered with mental retardation since birth. That thought serves as motivation, and Tim is why Scott continues to do what he does.

“I know, in reality, the real Ironman in our family is Tim,” Scott said. “He wasn’t supposed to live past a couple of years old, and now he’s in his 40s.”

No matter what your beliefs may be, Scott’s relations, his past experience and his disability seem to be made for his purpose of being someone for amputees and other disabled people to look up to.

This was evident before his first attempt at an Ironman during his June race in Idaho.

Two days before the race, there was a pasta dinner, in which Scott Rigsby received the Ford Everyday Hero Award, and a video was played during the ceremony. About 50,000 people came out to support him.

“Instantly, I connected with not only the participants, but also family members,” Rigsby said.

That Sunday, Rigsby raced a double amputee’s first Ironman in front of a home crowd.

He started with one of his best swims ever, finishing in an hour and 35 minutes. After a rough transition to the bike, he rode 60 miles, before the event that would cut his race short.

On mile 60, as he rode down a hill at about 25-miles per hour, his chain came off and he flipped over the handle bars, landing on his back and shoulders. He then gathered himself and rode the final 62 miles of the bike portion, before continuing on to the run, where he would eventually stop.

“There were only two ways I would be leaving that course,” Scott said. “By not making it to one of the time cutoffs, or they were going to take me off the course in an ambulance.”

While he did leave in an ambulance, he left just that race, not his journey.

Rigsby continues to train and seek sponsors for the Ironman in Hawaii, where he will be able to reach people on the biggest stage. The Ironman World Championships are broadcast worldwide on NBC, giving him his furthest reach to help others.

“I feel grateful to God for giving me the ability to be able to run, but run like nobody ever has on a set of prosthetic legs,” Rigsby said. “It’s a way for me to serve my country and give back to the men and women of the armed services, who give themselves for our freedom.

“Our military men and women, when they went into service, they were athletes, and just because they loose a limb, doesn’t mean that they are no longer athletes. They see me, and say, ‘Gosh, if that guy can do it with no legs, I can do it.”

Scott Rigsby is a native of Camilla who has two sisters living in Valdosta.