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For a role model, Tyler Deith isn't big on clean living.

His dirt yard, situated along a back road in Ontario's Muskoka region, is strewn with engine parts, straw, lumber, car relics and the odd pile of empty beer cans. Visitors are greeted by a Budweiser-swilling pig named Ernie. Mr. Deith himself swore off razors and barber shears all winter, and this spring has taken on what his friend Luke calls "the Jesus look."

All this is a window into the restless mind and body of Mr. Deith. At 27, he is an inveterate tinkerer, often poring over ultra-light airplane construction, electric-car plans and wheelchair-accessible motorbike projects into the morning.

"They call these the doctor killers, eh," he says, grabbing the flimsy airplane frame popular among wealthy professionals. "We'll see. I should have it up by summer."

But for all the time he spends as Tyler Deith, inventor, thousands of people know him as Ty, crazy wheelchair dude. The guy in the online video clips who'll roll into skateboard halfpipes, surf rapids, ride snowboard rails - all in beat-up $5,000 wheelchairs he replaces more often than most people do shoes.

Some have dubbed his stunts "hardcore sitting." He's broken bones, been courted for speaking gigs, and inspired countless chair-bound risk takers to test the limits of disability.

I watch the show Jackass, and I'll do half the stuff they do," says childhood buddy Luke, who often drops by to hang with Mr. Deith and Ernie. "But I watch Tyler in his chair, and I wouldn't do any of that. It's crazy, man."

This strange path toward minor celebrity started on a dark October day nearly seven years ago. Mr. Deith was late for work. His eyes heavy, he tried to make up time on his new Harley Davidson. Near Bracebridge, Ont., he fell asleep and roared off a cliff.

Prior to that day, he'd been a seemingly immortal kid who needed a constant adrenalin fix. In summer he dirt-biked and skateboarded. In winter he hit the snowboard park. Snow or shine, he worried his parents sick.

And not much was different when he woke up that day at the bottom of a gulley. For five hours he lay there, wheezing with a punctured lung, watching the roofs of cars whiz by above, simmering over how long it was taking rescuers to find him and wondering why he couldn't feel his damn legs.

He would later find out: a T6-7 fracture. Translation: "Basically, I can't feel below my tits."

But his need for danger only grew. He became a living testament to the saying about necessity being the mother of invention. Along with the junk in his yard is a fleet of hair-raising innovations made for the chair-bound: a solar-powered go-cart capable of 80 kilometres an hour; a Harley-powered golf cart, a motorbike with a sidecar and hand controls, and an ultralight airplane frame he plans to fly this summer.

For his next invention, he plans to outfit a battery-powered car. "I think it'll only take 15 or 20 bucks a month to charge," he says. "Considering where gas prices are now, that's not bad."

And that's not the only reason for his electrical bent, as he'll tell you when his girlfriend, Amy, is out of earshot. "Yeah, it's good for the environment," he whispers, "but I also I get laid more for being a conservationist."

For all his pioneering endeavours, Mr. Deith's notoriety is most closely tied to hardcore sitting, when the 27-year-old careers down skateboard ramps in his $5,000 full-suspension wheelchair. He started about four years ago. Following some friends to a skateboard park one day, he thought, " 'Why not just drop in myself?' I got to the edge of the halfpipe. I was a little scared, all right. But you can't get to that point and back out." So he thought, screw it, and he dropped in. "It was awesome."

Since then he's rolled down halfpipe walls more than a storey high all over North America. For his daring, he's even been invited to speak to groups of up to 600 students. At one gig at the University of Florida, he was a little shy. "I talked about the weather and this and that. I was boring. So then I just jumped off the stage."

A four-foot-high stage, to be exact. The formerly lethargic crowd went nuts.

What makes his feats all the more remarkable is the extent of his spinal injury. He doesn't have much abdominal strength, so when the chair goes off-kilter, Mr. Deith's body follows.

Several spill videos are online at XTeamTyler.com, including two that are excruciating to watch.

"I'll admit, it can be a little tough being his parent sometimes," says his dad, Andy Deith.

Those crack-ups have taken a toll. Most recently, he broke an elbow and has since pared down his hardcore-sitting schedule. But he knows that by pushing the limits of his body he can inspire other chair-bound adrenalin junkies.

In wheelchair circles, he's something of a star. Along with Aaron Fotheringham, a teen from Las Vegas, he's one of a small group of hardcore sitters. He occasionally brings that enthusiasm for risk to a local spinal-injury rehab facility.

"I'd like to encourage people, but some don't want the help," he says, letting the statement hang as he looks around his shop scattered with tools, old motors, a chessboard and other marks of a man who is perpetually mid-idea. "Some people get into a wheelchair and think life is over."