Rodney Rogers played professional basketball for 12 seasons in the NBA. He won the Sixth Man of the Year award for Phoenix in 2000. Eight years later, however, he was paralyzed in an auto accident involving a dirt bike and a deadly ditch.
Now, according to ESPN, the former NBA star isn’t looking to win any championship titles or specialized awards. Rodney Rogers wants to find a cure for his quadriplegia and be able to walk again on his own two feet. He is done living with paralysis and wants leave wheelchair for good.
Ex-NBA star, Rodney Rogers, sustained a spinal cord injury in a 2008 dirt bike accident.
Rogers cannot get around by himself any more. He is confined to a motorized wheelchair or a bed for most of the day, relying on others – like his fiancée, Faye, and a team of nurses — to feed, cloth, and bathe him. Being a quadriplegic is hard for anyone, but especially for Rogers, who is a big man with an even bigger dream: one day walking again.
“I hope and pray that in the near future, I’ll get my arms back, and then hopefully my legs,” said Rogers. “If I had to walk with a cane or something, that’d be fine. I just want to be able to walk again.”
In November of 2008, Rogers was riding his dirt bike along a rural road when he was thrown over the handlebars of his bike as it hit a ditch. Being a veteran rider, Rogers was wearing protective motorcycle body armor, including a helmet and shoulder pads, everything except a neck brace. He miss judged his fall and landed on his neck, suffering a severe spinal cord injury in the process.
He underwent a spinal fusion on his C3 and C4 vertebrae the day after the accident. Doctors said that the diagnosis for the spinal cord injury was not good. Rogers kept going into shock from the pain and suffering his was experiencing, prompting doctors to give him a 50-percent chance of surviving.
But Rogers did survive; pretty well in fact.
Since the accident Rogers has been adjusting to his new physical condition every day. He attends physical therapy twice a week where trainers put him through a regiment of electric-stimulation treatments and fitness exercises in an attempt to recharge his muscles. Though he has not seen much improvement, Rogers remains dedicated to his mission of walking once again.
To learn more about Rogers and to help those with a physical condition similar to his, visit The Rodney Rogers Foundation and discover ways you can play a part in finding a cure for paralysis.
Contact our bilingual offices as soon as possible following a spinal cord injury at 1-800-655-6585 or please click here for a free consultation with an experienced spinal cord injury attorney in San Diego.
