Mark Ideson

Mark Ideson (born 10 April 1976 in Parry Sound, Ontario) is a Canadian wheelchair curler who competed in the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi and won gold. He is married and has 2 children. He now resides in London, Ontario. In 2007, the helicopter he was piloting crashed into a field near Cambridge, Ontario and he now lives with quadriplegia. He played hockey and golf before he was disabled.

Ideson is married and has 2 children, a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. He went to the University of Western Ontario . He studied environmental Science there with his future wife, Lara. He was also a former Mustangs Cheerleader. After graduating university, he became a helicopter pilot and was introduced to curling in 2010 at the age of 33.

In 2007, during a maintenance flight, his helicopter crashed into a field near Cambridge, Ontario. He broke 29 bones during the process. 500 metres away, Daniel Hermann, an eight-year-old boy saw this and went to his mother to call 9-1-1. The ambulance arrived shortly after within 20 minutes. Ideson said “I had rehearsed for seven years what I was going to say to a kid that essentially saved my life. I could never really put it to words"