Austin Magruder

Born in El Paso, TX. Grew up in the desert, riding horses, motorcycles and shooting guns, also did normal kid sports. Moved to Bakersfield, CA in 1994 with his mother for her job and made great friends there. Two and a half years later he moved to Houston, TX with his mother and finished High School at Taylor HS in Katy, TX, Class of 1998. One month after graduating high school, Austin contracted meningococcal meningitis, and made him an inpatient at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH) for 2 months (in a medically induced coma for 1.5 months of that time). After his time at TCH, he was sent to a rehab hospital (TIRR) where he learned how to walk, balance and do everyday tasks where he was an inpatient for a month. The meningitis left him with acute renal failure (kidney failure) and a few years after he had End Stage Renal Disease. He had been on and off of dialysis since 1998, and on April 4, 2001 is when his mother donated one of her kidneys to him. Shortly after, in 2001, Austin got into cycling and that became a passion of his. He has worked at a bike shop, in residential and commercial Audio/Video, and real estate. Austin is also an advocate for Organ Donor Awareness and competes in the Transplant Games to show that organ donation works. On a cold day in Spring of 2014, his good friend David Heck offered him a small part in his movie "The Kid".