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On a day off during his spring baseball trip in Miami, Brendan and a few teammates ventured down to the sunny beach outside their hotel. Examining who was around, Brendan half sprinted towards the water, taking knee high steps. Taking a deep breath, he jumped through a wave hitting the top of his head on the sandy bottom. Two of his teammates quickly grabbed him, dragging his body to the sandy shoreline. He compressed and broke his C5 vertebrae of his spinal cord. The surgeon who performed surgery fused his C4-C6 vertebrae with bone, a titanium plate, and four screws. He received news from the doctor that he would never walk again.
Brendan went to the Froedert Memorial Hospital in Milwaukee for three months of intense therapy, helping him with daily living routines and getting out with his new wheelchair. Then he moved to Illinois and went to the Rehab Institute of Chicago Northbrook for eight months of outpatient therapy. There, he received strength training and worked on becoming less dependent on people. All of the therapy made Brendan a stronger and more confident person in a wheelchair. The therapy was for living in a chair, not for walking in his future.
“I searched for a program that would mentally and physically challenge my abilities of one day walking again. I have great hope in my mind and heart to attempt the challenge," says Brendan.
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It was a mid-spring concert close to home that will never be forgotten. On May 21, 2006, Joe Radzikowski had attended a local jazz concert only miles from his Fallbrook, CA home. It was also the last day he has been able to use his arms and legs.
Driving home from the concert, a stalled car in the middle of a tight curve caused Joe to take evasive action to avoid a straight-on collision. The evasive action took his car off the side of the road, then off an embankment where it came to rest after a few roll-overs. Joe was airlifted to a local hospital and later received the news that in addition to a collapsed right lung and four broken ribs, his C4 and C5 cervical vertebra were dislocated. After months in a hospital, Joe underwent re-alignment surgery. It did not fare well. Joe woke up the next morning a quadriplegic.
Months of intensive physical therapy brought enough use to Joe’s left arm to manage a powered wheelchair. Joe now continues his regular Physical Therapy and treatments at Awakenings Health Institute. Amazingly, Joe continues to improve and is gaining slight movements throughout his body.
With your help, Joe will be able to continue to provide for relentless uninsured medical expenses. Joe’s new goal in life is to move forward and help others in similar situations. You can assist Joe realize his new dreams.
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Since I was I child I knew I was here to do something HUGE. I never imagined it would be defying the medical community and teaching myself how to walk again. But I'm doing it, and it is awesome!!!!!
I began defying gravity at the age of 5 on the monkey bars at school. I expressed my love of flight through gymnastics classes in elementary school and college competitive cheerleading when I was older. While cheerleading, my gymnastic abilities increased exponentially. I learned back
handsprings, back flips, laid out back flips, and many more aerial maneuvers. I loved it so much that I tumbled everywhere there was grass, and even in my living room! Over and over I tumbled, until I could perform the gymnastics on cue. To this day, I still feel like I am flying when I think about cheerleading and gymnastics. This exhilaration is what drives me today.
While instructing at a high school cheerleading camp I decided to take flight. Towards the end of the camp there was a lull in the crowd's energy, so I decided to gain their attention by performing a simple round-off back handspring. I could have done it blindfolded. I saw a clearing in between instructors. I looked left. Clear. I looked right. Clear. I took a step and hurdled forward. First my hands connected with the ground, then my feet. I arched backwards and sprung onto my hands. As my feet were about to touch the ground I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, in the air, about to hit me. WHAM!!!!!
I collided with another instructor and broke my neck. I am now overcoming quadriplegia. I have already accomplished much more than my doctors ever said I would. I am living independently; I can roll over; I am learning to crawl and have started to learn how to stand in a walker. All of this after the doctors told me I would never use a manual wheelchair or even feed myself, and this is just the beginning. Amazing changes are taking place within my body, and it is all so very exciting! Now others may know that they can do it too!!!
I am healing my body and I will walk again, in spite of what the medical doctors predicted. That is MY miracle. What is yours? By contributing to my healing, you are also affirming that you can attain your own dreams too!
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I still cannot seem to remember anything from the accident. My family filled in the blanks over the next couple of weeks as I began to try and pull myself back together. A spinal cord injury is something no one should ever have to go through, but here we all are. My dad told me when we were in the ambulance. As I lay there still in shock, I said, “Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll walk again,” as if I knew nothing would get in my way; nothing would hold me down and someday I would walk again.
I was initially injured in December of 2003, after the car I was riding in with my family hit a patch of black ice just outside of Boise, Idaho. I was in the backseat asleep without my seatbelt as the car lost control. All I remember was sitting up, seeing and feeling the car out of control, and then, nothing. I woke up in the hospital days after they put rods in my back to stabilize the dislocation and fracture that occurred to my T-12/L1 vertebra, which left me paralyzed from my waist down. The doctors told my parents that there was no chance of me walking again.
Two months after my injury, I was able to stand on my left leg without support. My right leg began to gain strength after three years of physical training and, although I am not able to stand on it without support, it is only getting stronger. I am currently working on strength training, gait training and overall coordination.
When I dream, I am not in a wheelchair, I never have been, and I am excited to think, one day my dreams will come true. I have a dream, and I have hundreds of people who believe in me. It gives me strength I didn’t know I had. Life gets crazy sometimes and you can forget what is important, but every time I go for my therapy, I think of everyone who believes in me, who supported me when my family and I did not have the means to and who told my story to give hope or inspiration. All of it gives me the strength to keep going.
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