Philip was only 18 when he broke his neck at a Sydney surf beach 40 years ago, diving in to get the sand off. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since, and has come to define himself by his abilities…
Category: Personal stories
Dean’s story
Dean has learned to live without the use of his legs, but he’ll never stop dreaming of returning to his old hobbies. At age 20, he was on the trip of a lifetime living and snowboarding in the French Alps…
Chloe’s story
Chloe, a molecular genetics researcher, was on a dream to Europe when her life changed. The plan began when she went on a trip to Italy with her mum. Chloe loved it and resolved to come back for a working…
The lecture that convinced Neilson to back spinal research
Article reproduced with kind permission from the Australian Financial Review. By Jill Margo, Health Editor. When it comes to spinal cord injuries, people hesitate to use the word “cure”. But this didn’t deter billionaire Kerr Neilson, who for idiosyncratic and…
Tom Elphick’s story
Tom Elphick was an aspiring professional dancer and overseas student at Codarts University in Rotterdam with a promising and exciting career ahead of him. He was coming to the end of his degree and had just landed a great position…
Non-traumatic spinal cord injury: Barbara’s story
Non-traumatic spinal cord injury occurs when the spinal cord is damaged by something other than major trauma. Many medical issues can lead to these injuries. In fact things like tumours and degenerative disorders are the leading cause of SCIs in…
Bradley Trevor Greive
Bradley Trevor Greive AM (BTG) wrote the best-seller Penguin Bloom, The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a Family, as well as the new book Sam Bloom, Heartache & Birdsong. For four years he researched spinal cord injury (SCI) and spent…
James Gribble: Person of Interest – August 2020
Our Person of Interest for August is James Gribble. We chose him because he is actively trying to improve the lives of Australians living with disabilities through his company Empower Golf. Below he shares how he came to be involved…
Norman Steyn
In 2004 Norman had a motor vehicle accident which left him with some rather serious injuries – a broken neck at C2 and back at T3, a fractured sternum, four ribs severed from his spine and a stick pierced his…
Emma Mickle
In January 2020, Emma was hiking in New Zealand when a tree branch fell on her, leaving her with 20 broken bones – skull, jaw, clavicle, humerus, six ribs, wrist, hand and ankle – as well as 3 broken…