Tag: Personal Story

Don’t ever call me ‘wheelchair bound’. My wheelchair doesn’t bind me – it liberates me!

The wheelchair represents many different things, depending on the beholder’s personal experience. Many is the time I have been acutely aware that my wheelchair makes me the living embodiment of that blue symbol that adorns bathrooms and parking spaces.

I hadn’t really given wheelchairs much thought myself, until 13 years ago when I fell from a tree and sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI), causing instant and permanent paraplegia.

The story behind the popular Clark’s Botanicals skincare line is one of resilience and survival. Entrepreneur Francesco Clark started the beauty line as a kitchen sink operation, and now it’s used by stars like Madonna, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. But six years before he created the celebrated brand, Clark survived a devastating accident that changed the course of his life forever.

“Thirty seconds before, I was very proud and I felt accomplished. Thirty seconds after, I felt like the biggest failure in the world,” Clark told “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King.

At only 24 years old, Francesco Clark’s life changed in an instant.

After suffering a near-fatal accident that left him a quadriplegic, Dale Tabor found encouragement in his love for and commitment to artistic expression. He has painted hundreds of thousands of pictures on canvas and various other backdrops by mouth painting.

Fifty years ago, Pyatt native Dale Tabor dreamed the dreams of most ambitious young men, of traveling the world, having a measure of fame, and being admired for his abilities and talents. Though his life turned out very different from the way the starry-eyed 20-year-old imagined, 50 years later, he reflects that he has lived out most of those dreams.

When Brenton Swartz was just 15-years-old a stray bullet struck his neck and robbed him of his ability to walk, and use his hands forever. From the pain and tragedy, Swartz found a hidden talent and a new reason to live. He began painting.

Swartz was hit in the neck by a stray bullet when a gun his brother was playing with accidentally went off. He then spent eight months in a hospital and was told he would never walk again. Just two months before this incident, his mother had passed away.

People with spinal cord injures at or above T6 may be at risk for a condition called autonomic dysreflexia that can result in a dangerous spike in blood pressure.

It’s been eight years since the night of Rachelle Chapman’s Bachelorette party where a playful push into a pool left her quadriplegic.

Since then, Rachelle became a wife, starred in a TLC television show, joined a quadriplegic rugby team and became a mother.

“I literally don’t know what I did before I was a mom,” Chapman confessed. “She’s so entertaining.”

Quadriplegic turned inspirational speaker: “When you’re faced with adversity, you have two basic choices. Curse the darkness or light a candle.”

Billy Keenan said he had it all.

“At that moment in time, I was living my best life,” he said. “My wife and children were happy and healthy. At 46, I was in the best shape of my life. I was a competitive triathlete and surfer for the last decade.”

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – From the moment her pencil hits the paper, Kelcee Yazzie never loses a smile, as she draws the subjects of her art.

At 21 years old, Loren Worthington slid head first into third base, but when he collided with the pitcher’s knee, he was instantly paralyzed. However, two decades after the accident that broke his neck, he discovered that by picking up a camera, he could still feel like he was right in the middle of the action.

The idea of racing around the Isle of Man’s world-famous TT course is terrifying for most us.

Yet Claire Lomas, who is paralysed from the chest down, hopes to do just that while only using her hands to control her motorbike.

“The bike has hand-controlled gears, Velcro on my knees to stop them flapping, and toe clips to stop my feet sliding,” she said.

“I’ll have someone to launch me and some poor person has to trust me as I ride towards them for them to catch me!”