Life Rolls On
One day, I was living the American dream, lovely wife, two great kids, a job that I loved and a place to call home. I was always trying to help others with whatever was asked of me as a good citizen and neighbor should. I volunteered to help my next door neighbor, by taking down an eight to ten foot high tree stump that was next to my driveway on her property. I was climbing off the top of a ladder into the top of the stump. The tree was a Sycamore tree and the bark peeled off a branch that I was holding onto, losing my grip and falling to the ground, landing on a large root that broken my back and shattered three vertebraes. I was not in any pain but was unable to get up. A neighbor across the street saw what happened and ran into their home to call 911. In about ten minutes or less a group of paramedics from the Linthicum Firehouse were at my side stabilizing me on a back board and took me away to the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, where my life was saved after my surgery to fuse five vertebrae together to stabilize my spinal column several days later by Dr. John Carbone. After about one week, I was moved to Kernan Rehabilitation Center for several weeks of therapy before coming home until my back surgery was healed and I was able to continue the therapies that would allow me to get my life back, paralyzed from the waist down. I returned about three months later to finish up my therapies to make me aware of what my new life would be like at Kernan Rehabilitation Center. Here, my whole family’s lives and friends has changed in an instant and future was uncertain! How am I going to be able to support my family and maintain a lifestyle that we had grown accustom too. This was the biggest challenge I had ever faced in my life, but life goes on and the human spirit learns to adjust to my new life in a wheelchair. With the help of all my family, especially my wife and friends that came out to support me and make life a little easier for me with all the changes to come with this new life. I never realize the power of prayer until this happened to me and survived to start a new future and job. I am now working full time and supporting my family in a wheelchair for over nine years. I have learned to be my best advocate by speaking up to let others know that the ADA is there to help others like myself, in making the world that we live in accessible for all of us. I have a new view on life and trying to make a difference for all that are unable to speak up and show others that I am still the same person, just stuck in a wheelchair to get around in. It is now almost twelve years since my accident and very happy to be alive to see my children grow up, get married and have grandkids! I owe my life to the great people that work at R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at University of Maryland in Baltimore. God Bless each and every one of them for what they do for all their patients in the past, present, and future!
