Runner lost everyone in Haiti earthquake. Now he's running toward a bright future in Louisville

LOUISVILLE – Michael Brizendine is more than just a runner. He’s a survivor, the likes of which few people could possibly imagine. 

Brizendine was born in Haiti and spent the first 10 years of his life like most other children growing up, playing with his friends and doing chores his parents gave him.

But everything changed in 2010 when an earthquake struck the island. The total casualty count exceeded 200,000 people, but for Brizendine, it was much more personal.

He watched his school collapse right in front of him with his teachers and schoolmates trapped inside. The only reason he was not inside with them was because of a bathroom break which took him about 100 feet outside of his building. He wouldn’t find out until months later, but he was the sole survivor from his school.

“It took me years to be able to talk about it,” said Brizendine. “I just have to learn to live with it and know that it’s something that really did happen. Learning about (that) after the whole thing, it was almost like you were reliving it every time you hear it.” 

Not only did the earthquake claim his school, but it also took the lives of his natural parents who were in their home when it collapsed on them. Brizendine didn’t have the benefit of immediate or extended family support, so he soon found himself in an orphanage.

“In Haiti, it’s very typical that people get to know a lot of their relatives,” said Brizendine, who is entering his junior year studying computer engineering at Bellarmine. “I didn’t grow up with that privilege. They were at home where I left them to go to school.

"No one wanted to stay at the capital (Port-au-Prince), which is where the earthquake happened. I just started running. As a 10-year-old, it was not the most fun thing. You were so confused in the moment, you couldn’t think. I ended up having to run where there was a bus station. They were taking people in and out of the capital.”

Brizendine would soon come to the attention of Todd and Michelle Brizendine, a Louisville couple visiting Haiti on a missionary trip. The Brizendines weren’t originally scheduled to visit the orphanage where Michael was staying. But somehow, their group detoured to the orphanage and Michael.

When they met each other, there was an almost instant familial connection made between Michael and the Brizendines. His adoption process was finally completed in 2016, and, at that point, Michael immigrated to Louisville and enrolled at Christian Academy of Louisville for high school. The Brizendines also connected Michael with a group of trauma experts that he could talk to and come to grips with what he experienced in the earthquake.

“I’m so thankful for them for doing that,” said Michael, who could not recall the name of the group, but showered their workers with praise for helping him reconcile his trauma. “I’m not sure what you would call them, but (they are) people who help with trauma.

"That was one thing, especially once I immigrated here, that I struggled with a lot, thinking of those moments. Their jobs...all they deal with is people who go (through) a type of thing like that. They are good at what they do.”

But it was at Christian Academy that Michael discovered a passion, and perhaps another outlet, borne from the earthquake. He described his running to get away from Port-au-Prince as something he had never done before, but soon it was clear that running was a positive in his life.

He made it a part of his morning routine and credits his running during the earthquake with saving his life as everything around him was coming down. He originally joined the Christian Academy soccer team, but was soon lured away from the soccer fields by a group of runners taking laps around the campus.

“One day during practice, I realized there was a group of students that were always running,” said Michael. “I was very curious. I didn’t know about cross country or anything like that. Once I learned that these guys were just running for the sport, I quit soccer that day and said, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’”

Michael took to running like a fish takes to the water and soon added track and field to his plate to get more runs in his life. He didn’t think of it as something that would get him to college, but his talent was too much to deny. Shortly after leaving soccer, he found himself recruited by the running coaches at Bellarmine University. 

“Since then, it’s been what I’m doing,” said Michael, who runs 5Ks, 10Ks and the mile in track. He runs 8Ks and 10Ks in cross country. “Never viewed running as the typical way someone here would view it, if you were good at it. I view it as life. Even in high school, when I was running it was more for doing it because it’s part of our duty to move forward every day in life.”

“When I first got hired, (Michael) was coming off of an injury,” said Bellarmine cross country and track & field coach Chase Broughton, who took over the school’s running programs in 2019. “But when he first started working out with the team when he got healthy, he was immediately one of the top guys on the team.”

So far in his collegiate career, Michael was named GLVC Freshman of the Year and earned conference All-Academic distinctions for cross country in 2019. He also earned All-Academic honors in both indoor (2019) and outdoor (2019 and 2020) track. He also earned two top-five finishes in 2020 during the outdoor season before finishing ninth overall in the 3000m race at the GLVC Indoor Championships in 2020. 

But beyond his athletic achievements, Michael is hard at work developing his own group chat app, called Yornest. The app is currently in beta form on the App Store for iPhone and has about 200 users, according to Bellarmine’s blog page. But Michael is working with a partner to really bring the app to its most polished finish and hopes it can offer a more curated and intimate communicating experience, something he feels is lacking in the major social media platforms.

“It’s more for college students,” he said. “I launched it last year, and now I’m building the actual product. If you use Twitter or Instagram, just think of both of these things combined together but do it in a group chat. You can have your private social space with people you choose to (share) it with.”

Michael hopes to continue with the Bellarmine running programs long after he graduates, in a coaching or mentoring sort of role. Though running is something Michael got into because of trauma, he now views his foot skills as something he will never put down as long as he has breath in his body. Moving forward will always be the focus in his life. 

“It’s a reminder of what my life has been so far,” said Michael. “Every time I run, that’s how I think about it."

Reach Jonathan Saxon at JSaxon@gannett.com or 502-715-1393 and follow him on Twitter at @TheSleepyScribe.