ANKENY, Iowa– An Ankeny man turned a near-fatal car accident into a new outlook on life.

Johnny Nerem of Ankeny was living in Chicago back in 2016. Little did he know, Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, would be the day that changed his life forever. It’s not the kind of life-changing event that normally happens on Valentine’s Day, either. Instead, Nerem lost control of his new Chevrolet Camaro going around a curve on the outskirts of Chicago and crashed his dream car.

Nerem was life-flighted from the scene and taken to a hospital in Chicago. It was there he was told that he had broken both of his legs, all of his ribs, scalped his head, needed a hip replacement and lost three-fifths of his blood. Remarkably, he survived.

Until the accident, Nerem didn’t believe what he did in life had an impact on anyone else. That thought changed when his family drove from Ankeny to Chicago through a blizzard. What is normally a five-hour drive took nine.

“When they walked in, I realized that my life does touch a lot more people than just myself,” Nerem said. “And that was when I was like, I need to change my life.”

That’s exactly what he did. After being out of work for eight months, Nerem found a job in Las Vegas. He told himself that he would not drink alcohol again and vowed that every weekend, he would not sit inside and do nothing. That is where his journey started.

“I made a rule that I’d never just sit at home over the weekend,” Nerem said. “At first, I just started going up into the mountains around Las Vegas.”

He then visited the Grand Canyon, which led him to visit Death Valley, which was only a couple of hours away. That is when Nerem decided to start tracking his journey through a National Parks passport book.

His life brought him back to Iowa to be closer to his family. By that time, he had crossed many parks off his list.

“After my time was done in Las Vegas, I realized that I was pretty close to being halfway done with these,” Nerem said. “That’s when I really decided that I wanted to visit all of them.”

Today, Nerem has visited 52 of the 63 national parks. He has a plan to visit the remaining 11 before his birthday next October.

Johnny’s mom, Karen Nerem, said that she didn’t know what he was going to do in life, but always knew that it would be something special.

“I really didn’t see what his journey was going to be, but I knew it was going to be a great one because he was an amazing man,” Karen said. “It was almost like, you don’t want to say a blessing in disguise, but, God had a plan for him and it really turned out to be a great one.”

Johnny collects everything from coffee mugs and magnets to pins and T-shirts at every park he visits. He said that much of the time, the gift store is the most expensive part of his trip.

Nerem has planned for his last stop to be in Yosemite National Park in California. He said that the park is planning a celebration for him and he has invited many of his family and friends to attend.

It’s not just the National Parks he plans to check off his list, either. After this journey, he plans to visit all seven continents and travel on every interstate in the U.S.