Mike Fiffe, right, of Huntington, with professional bodybuilder Kai Greene. Fiffe was savagely beaten and left for dead in a 2001 incident, but recovered and now competes in wheelchair bodybuilding events.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Mike Fiffe could have easily been Huntington’s Matthew Shepard.
A victim of unspeakable, unthinkable hate, but Fiffe and fate had other plans.
In November 2001, when he was 28, Fiffe was leaving a Huntington dance club when he was beaten, robbed and left for dead with a fractured skull, broken orbital bone, knocked out teeth, broken ribs and collapsed lungs.
His attackers inflicted permanent injuries that he, even 15 years later, battles daily – from brain damage and impeded speech and vision to limited use of his left side and his legs.
Fiffe, who coded fives times in the emergency room, was in a coma for six weeks and spent six months in the hospital after the attack. He first turned to art as his shriveled and permanently damaged body slowly healed as best it could.
But three years ago Fiffe, who is now 42, found his way back to one of his first loves – bodybuilding. Fiffe, who lives in the West End of Huntington, declared that “my new canvas is me…