Chris Leeuw, 40, sustained a spinal cord injury 13 years ago and later founded a nonprofit facility to provide affordable rehabilitation services for people like him.
On a summer day in 2010, my friends and I were kayaking on the Driftwood River in southern Indiana. A few hours into the trip, we stopped near a bridge where people were jumping off into the deep river below. I was a bit of a thrill-seeker and never afraid of heights, so I climbed to the top beam of the bridge. Before I could jump, a stranger called out, asking me to wait for him. Once he reached me, we stood next to each other, counted to three, and jumped.
The instant I hit the water, I knew something was wrong. It was like a stun gun had shocked my entire body. I was frozen under the water and unable to move a muscle. I didn't know it at the time, but the stranger had landed directly on my head as we struck the water. My neck was snapped at the fourth cervical vertebra, my spinal cord was crushed, and my 6-foot-2, 200-pound body was paralyzed from the neck down.
The stranger who landed on me also rescued me, moments before I would have drowned, as I floated face down in the river. I was airlifted to a hospital in Indianapolis and underwent surgery to stabilize my neck.
Within a week I started seeing signs of improvement: a flicker of movement in my inner thigh indicated that some messages were making their way from my brain through the contusion on my spinal cord. I was then moved to a local rehabilitation hospital that specializes in spinal cord injuries and began the rigors of daily physical, occupational, and respiratory therapy. Progress was slow, but after a month I could move my right ankle and fingers.
It can take months or years to see improvements after a neurologic injury. The average stay at an acute care hospital is about 11 days; for a rehabilitation center it's about 31 days, according to a report from the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. I had great insurance through my employer (a tech start-up), but my physical therapist had to fight countless insurance denials to keep me in rehabilitation for eight weeks.
I was eventually moved to a nursing home where I received some therapy but not the specialized care offered at a rehabilitation center. Soon thereafter, I heard about Neuroworx, a specialty clinic near Salt Lake City that provides affordable extended rehabilitation for people recovering from neurologic injuries. My family and my employer held a fundraiser to pay for my mother and me to fly there for the next step of my recovery.
At Neuroworx I followed an aggressive, activity-based therapy that included treadmill training, aqua therapy, and neuromuscular electrical stimulation, with the goal of activating the nervous system below my neck. For the next 17 months I spent several hours every day in recovery. I learned to walk again and move my arms, and I slowly regained my independence.
Not quite two years after my accident, I drove myself back to Indianapolis with a new purpose: to start a similar rehabilitation facility in my home city. In 2015 I opened NeuroHope with two part-time physical therapists in a small, rent-free space at the University of Indianapolis. Over the past eight years, through the support of donors, grants, and fundraising events, we have raised millions of dollars and moved to a 13,000-square-foot multidisciplinary facility that includes physical and occupational therapy, personal training, and a wellness program for people living with paralysis. Most important, we have helped more than 500 people on their road to recovery.
As the founder and executive director of NeuroHope, I'm honored to work with an amazing team that helps change lives. Every day I see people create inspiring stories that mirror my own: finding hope, regaining independence, and improving their quality of life after injury, one step at a time. —As told to Paul Wynn
