$75,000 Treadmill Helps Children Walk

NEBRASKA -- Not a day goes by that Jackie Ondracek doesn’t think about her lifelong goal to walk. “I haven’t walked since seventh or eighth grade,” said the 17-year-old Omaha South High School student. The girl volunteered to be part of a unique research study to see whether a high tech piece of exercise equipment could help improve her strength, balance and stability on her feet. Jackie was born with cerebral palsy, a neuromuscular disorder that’s left her confined to a wheelchair. Read More!

New chamber chief has survived challenges

TEXAS - Jane Thomas has survived plenty of challenges, from losing the ability to walk as a teenager, to a diagnosis of Stage III breast cancer as an adult. She managed to make it through with a good sense of humor and a sense of purpose that has carried through today. On Friday, Thomas, 43, became chair of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. But the chamber's new officer induction ceremony proved another obstacle: the stage for the ceremony had no wheelchair ramp. Phone calls by chamber President Cindy Taylor to a handful of rental companies turned up zilch. “I never thought it would be such an issue until I really got it,” said Taylor, who noted Thomas was the first member of the chamber board in a wheelchair. The problem indicated to Thomas that not enough people with disabilities are in civic positions like this one. Read More!

Gift of the great outdoors

CALIFORNIA — Allen McKinley didn’t want to be treated like an invalid after he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident at age 24. At one point, he even cut the handles off his wheelchair because “I got sick of people trying to push me around,” he said. McKinley, known as Bucky, was a semipro snowboarder in Colorado. The motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the chest down, unable to do activities he loved. Now 31, McKinley spends much of his time working with rehabilitation specialists at Awakenings Health Institute, a nonprofit in Solana Beach that specializes in spinal-cord injury. Living in a part of the world known for its outdoor activities, McKinley gets frustrated because he can’t use his wheelchair on the beach, in the mountains or anywhere else off the beaten path. Read More!

Crown Point's Carpenter lives the life of a hero

INDIANA - Andy Carpenter received the Courage Award from Crown Point High School last Saturday night at the Bulldogs' boys basketball game against Boone Grove. On Monday he celebrated his 17th birthday, and the next day, Carpenter had his Thyroid removed at the University of Chicago Hospital as he faces cancer for the fourth time in his young life. "He is my hero," said Christy Carpenter, Andy's mother. Andy will have to wait until Feb. 15, when test results are returned, to see if the cancer has spread to his lymph nodes. Soon, he will begin radiation treatment. "Anyone who knows Andy understands that he will never quit," Christy said. Merrillville assistant boys basketball coach T.J. Lux has worked with Carpenter for two years trying to build up his upper body, so the wheelchair basketball player would have a chance to finally make a basket in a game for his team, the Rollin' Hoosiers. Carpenter played wheelchair basketball for six years without ever scoring. Read More!

Footy's still hard without cheap shots

AUSTRALIA - I dropped into the trauma ward of The Alfred hospital last week to visit my cousin-in-law, Vinny, who lay prostrate with a neck brace supporting two broken vertebrae in his neck. He'd been body-surfing on the Bellarine Coast when an ``everyday'' wave picked him up and slammed him head-first into the sand. What do you think of the new tribunal rules? Have your say below PLUS blog live with Robbo from noon today. It was the kind of wave that rolls on to Victoria's beaches a billion times over summer, but this one had disguised menace. The upshot was Vinny, a father of two, was millimetres away from being a quadriplegic. Thankful about what might have been but didn't happen, we later spoke about the intangibles of life. Read More!

Group stops by local ice rink

NEW JERSEY - They slashed across the ice of Skylands Ice World as if they were in a hurry to prove something. They were members of a new group called EveryBODY Skates New Jersey (ESNJ), and they were on a mission. A three day tour of all 54 of New Jersey’s Ice Rinks was organized by brothers Andrew and Jon Schwartz. They had only 54 hours to visit all 54 rinks and their teams were selected for their special ability to get the job done. So during a national promotion called "Hockey Weekend Across America", the ESNJ decided it was the perfect time for their own 54 in 54 awareness campaign. Andrew Schwartz, speaking at Stockholm’s Skyland Ice World said, "We are making this effort to raise awareness and influence local ice rinks to allocate just one hour of ice time per week, in season, to disabled hockey." Each of his team members have a disability and love the sport of Hockey. Read More!

FSU-bound Christian Jones won't forget life lessons from friend

At first blush, they two young men have nothing in common.Christian Jones is healthy and focused, each step measured precisely. He is going to Florida State on a football scholarship.Robert Shipe needs a wheelchair to get around. His speech is halting. His goal is to walk again. But they are brothers bonded in the spiritual sense. Christian looks at Robert and sees the devastating consequences of bad choices. It quiets down all the accolades and attention, and makes him think clearly about the road ahead. Shipe looked at the road ahead in a blurry haze a little over three years ago. It was the combustible elixir of drunk driving and racing, over in Winter Haven. His car hit a curb, then a pole, and then Shipe's world went black He woke up from a coma four months later, uncurling from a fetal position and wondering what happened. He didn't have a clue. "My memory was erased," he said. Read More!

Brian Fortuna brings Dancing On Wheels to BBC Three

U.K. - The stars of Strictly Come Dancing are set to take part in a glitzy and ground-breaking new series for BBC Three that will see them unite wheelchair users and celebrities in a dance competition with a difference. Wheelchair Dance Sport is something many British people have never heard of, although it originated in this country. Dancing On Wheels hopes to change that and put the sport back on the UK map! The lead choreographer, coach and expert on the show is Brian Fortuna, a professional ballroom dancer and semi finalist in this year’s Strictly. He has been teaching wheelchair dancing for the past eight years and will be putting the couples through their paces with help from his professional dance partner Kristina Rihanoff, who danced with Joe Calzaghe in this year’s competition. Read More!

Internet helps companies spread the word of 'miracles', families have to tread carefully

WISCONSIN - Megg Lasswell was writing a blog entry about her baby daughter's vision problems when an intriguing message popped on the screen. Her daughter, GiGi, was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, making her able to see only blurry outlines and shapes.... "It's obvious now that these people don't care about our families," she said in her blog. "They are using a support group to offer people the world, or at least vision for their children. How cheap and disgusting is that?" The company behind the unsolicited e-mail was Beike Biotechnology, a China-based enterprise that claims to be able to treat cerebral palsy, autism, spinal cord injuries, optic nerve disorders and two dozen other conditions with stem cells. Scientists say the treatments rely on flawed theories, have not been vetted to tell if they will make any difference and amount to patients paying to be subjects of an experiment. Read More!

Disabled chef finds recipe for recovery

COLORADO - Several cups of adversity, a few tablespoons of strength and several teaspoons of bravery - that could be the recipe for one local woman who is overcoming her disability one day at a time with one hand behind her back. Erie resident Erin Poyle, 35, spends most of her time in the kitchen. "I think about food all the time from one meal to the next. I think about my priority, what am I going to buy at the store and I always have food on the brain," Poyle said. Where some people cower in fear of boiling water, the self proclaimed foodie finds her greatest courage and creativity. "It's all out of my head. All the creativity comes from me and I can control it from the beginning to the end," Poyle said. And while she says she finds it easy to control what goes into her recipes, it has been impossible to control what has happened in her life. Read More!

Farmer crushed by hay bale is world's first paraplegic amputee to walk again

U.K. - A brave farmer who was crushed under a one-ton hay bale has become the first paraplegic amputee in the world to walk again. Courageous Robert Field amazed medics after taking his first steps after being confined to a wheelchair for more than two years. The 23-year-old has fulfilled his dream of walking again with the aid of a special brace and a prosthetic leg. Robert was left paralysed from the waist down when a hay bale fell on him while working on the family farm. He broke his back, fractured his jaw and severed a main artery in his leg. Surgeons were forced to amputate Robert's left leg below the thigh and steel rods inserted into his back to help stabilise it. Robert said the doctors called it a 'miraculous recovery' after initial fears he would die. Read More!

Experience, Achievements Bring Longtime Member Of Public Transportation Commission A New Term

CONNECTICUT - Yvonne Loteczka says she became an advocate for handicapped-accessible transportation because her television broke. Loteczka, who has multiple sclerosis, was forced to move into a senior housing complex on the Berlin Turnpike in 1986 because her parents' house in Hartford couldn't accommodate her wheelchair and scooter. She was no longer strong enough to rely on canes to get around, she said. Shortly after she moved, her television stopped working and she realized she had no way of getting another one. She made a few calls and found that the state was introducing a handicapped-accessible bus that could take her to the mall. So Loteczka took the bus and bought a new TV. Read More!

Bound to wheelchair since age 14, artist gets a broader canvas at 35

INDIA - He has been confined to a wheelchair since the age of 14 due to a neuromuscular disease and has hardly moved out of his home in his small village Kerala but C V Surendran’s talent has come a long way in two decades and on Monday, it got a broader canvas. His sketches, all made with a ballpoint pen, are now on display at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. Now 35, Surendran from Kerala’s Kannur district, who had to fight years of frustration, tried to explore his talent as a painter. But using a brush did not work, as his only functioning hand, the right, did not have enough power. Read More!

The Olympic mayor who never was says he has no regrets

CANADA - Former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan was the international media darling four years ago when he famously did the "Turin Twirl" at the 2006 Winter Games. But now, as the world descends on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Sullivan has been left out of the spotlight. And he has no regrets about it. "It was a wonderful experience to be mayor of the city for three years, it was a tremendous experience. And to represent the city to the world, both in Beijing and in Torino, was a great honour but I don't have any regrets," he tells The Province. Vancouver's mayor from 2005 to 2008 played a key role in shaping the city in the lead-up to the Olympics. The quadriplegic also left a memorable global impression when he did a pirouette in his wheelchair upon acceptance of the Olympic flag at the close of the Turin Games. Read More!