Spinal cord patients enjoy swimming competition

Digam Limbu, 23, had sustained spinal cord injury in a road accident in Qatar on August 28 last year. The accident changed Limbu´s life, who then worked in Qatar. His legs do not function and he is confined to wheelchair.

A year on, a happy moment came in his life as he won the title of a swimming competition of athletes with spinal cord injury on Sunday. Limbu clocked 39.98 seconds to complete 25 meters in the competition organized by Nepal Spinal Cord Injury Sports Association with assistance from wushu player Sami Lama and Buddha Prakash School, Jorpati. Continue Reading »

London marks 2-year countdown to Paralympics

LONDON — London will mark the two-year countdown to the homecoming of the Paralympics on Sunday, celebrating the growing prominence of the event and its start in England in 1948.

More than 500,000 people have already registered interest in buying tickets on the London 2012 website for the 12-day event, and organizers hope to attract a global TV audience of 4 billion. Continue Reading »

GameBase

The SpecialEffect Charity, which runs the GameBase, began as a result of an award winning Ace Centre Project.

SpecialEffect is dedicated to helping ALL young people with disabilities to enjoy computer games. We’ll do whatever it takes, because we’ve seen first hand what a kick-start effect they can can have on motivation, inclusion and quality of life. Continue Reading »

Canadian Provinces Pledge Millions for Spinal Cord Injury Research

On the final day of the Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), Premier Gordon Cambell told the press that BC would give $25 million to spinal cord injury research. Rick Hansen, a Canadian paraplegic athlete started an initiative to raise $200 million for spinal cord research. The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that in addition to BC’s contribution, Ottawa would donate $13.5 million more to the Hansen Foundation over the next 3 years. Continue Reading »

Paralympics raised the bar

The Winter Olympics were a huge success, bringing Canadians together as never before, shining a new light on our province, and proving that yes, we can do it.

There is a good chance, however, that Vancouver 2010 will be known as much for the Paralympics that followed as for the Olympics themselves.

For the first time in the history of the Games, disabled athletes were celebrated not for the adversity they had overcome, but for their athletic abilities. Continue Reading »

Sit-Ski Success

From school project to the Paralympics

A sit-ski that started as an extracurricular project for some University of Calgary students will be on display at the Paralympics in Whistler, B.C., this week and may soon make skiing more accessible for disabled people.

The germ of the idea for this innovative new sit-ski came from a lift line conversation in 2006, remembers James Chew. Then an industrial design student working on his master’s degree at the University of Calgary, Chew was introduced to some members of the Calgary chapter of the Canadian Association for Disabled Skiing that his friend Derek Gratz had met in a lift line at Canada Olympic Park. Continue Reading »

Paralympic torch lands in Toronto on way across the country

TORONTO — Three years ago, Master Cpl. Jody Mitic stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan and along with losing both of his legs, he also thought he would never be able to play sports again.

But on Friday Mitic — who has run in marathons, snowboarded, hang-glided and scuba dived since his accident — was one of 40 chosen to carry the Paralympic torch in Toronto. Continue Reading »

Power Soccer

Power Soccer is the first competitive team sport designed and developed specifically for power wheelchair users. Continue Reading »

Gridiron Heroes help athletes who have suffered spinal injuries

Few football games have had as much impact on as many lives as that state championship game in 2002 between Everman and Burnet. That was the game in which Everman defensive back Corey Fulbright left the field with a paralyzing injury, a vertebral fracture.

It must have been difficult at the time to imagine that much good could have come out of such a situation.

But in the stands that day, Dec. 14, at the Alamodome, were Eddie Canales and his son, Chris, who a year earlier had experienced a similar injury while playing for San Marcos Baptist Academy. Continue Reading »

Paralysis doesn’t stop ex-football players from giving back

Paralysis doesn’t stop former football athletes from raising money to make life a little easier for youngsters who suffer catastrophic spinal cord injuries

Only the start of a football game bothers Kenneth Jennings, who blows into a tube and turns his wheelchair away from the action. Once the kickoff’s over, his eyes are glued to the field.

It was while he was returning a kickoff for Simeon High as a lightning-quick junior in 1988 that he suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury and lost all use of his extremities below the neck. Continue Reading »