Blog Post

For Mark Raymond Jr., Crescent City Classic race about way more than reaching finish line

David Schmit • Apr 22, 2022

Mark Raymond Jr. won’t be running or walking through the streets of New Orleans like the thousands of others on Saturday in the Caesars Sportsbook Crescent City Classic.

Because of a tragic accident six years ago that left him paralyzed, he isn’t able to.

But that’s not stopping Raymond and some of his peers from participating in the 10K race.


“Not many races do you see a bunch of people in wheelchairs trudging along,” Raymond said. “That’s the point. It’s intentional. We want people to see us and ask questions and learn about our mission.”


For Raymond, 33, the Crescent City Classic isn’t just about reaching the finish line. It’s more about reaching his goal of providing a better quality of life for people living with disabilities. It’s the reason Raymond founded the Split Second Foundation, a nonprofit whose aim is to help people dealing with what he has had to deal with.

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Watch Split Second Foundation founder Mark Raymond Jr. in his appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show this Tuesday, May 7th!

Diving Accident Survivor Dedicates Life to Helping Others: ‘Being Quadriplegic Is My Superpower'

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The last thing Mark Raymond Jr. remembers in those final seconds before the accident was standing in the back of his buddy’s boat at the end of a perfect July afternoon in 2016, and staring down into the waters of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain. Then he dove in and instantly felt his forehead slam into the sandy bottom of the lake. “I couldn’t move and realized, 'I’m probably going to drown,’ " Raymond tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. “My last thoughts were about my mom and just praying that my friends would realize what was happening.” He was close to death when his pals pulled him out of the water and performed CPR. Two weeks later, Raymond awoke from a medically induced coma in a New Orleans hospital to discover that he’d fractured the fifth vertebrae in his neck and could no longer walk or fully use his hands. “I quickly learned that my life was going to be really different,” he says. “To call it a huge adjustment is an understatement.” Read more.

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