Why I Run Wednesday: Chase Ford

What can I say? Simply amazing.

Have you donated yet? http://teamreevenyc08.kintera.org/dawnhering

Please read more about Chase Ford here. Some highlights:

[After the injury] Chase was not himself. "We would take him outside," remembers Renee[Chase's mom]. "He loved airplanes and motorcycles, and he could really care less about seeing them. He would not see you, or he would not acknowledge your existence at the beginning."

The doctor told her Chase was depressed.

"What do you do for a child who's two and depressed?" Renee asks. The NRN [NeuroRecovery Network] changed Chase's outlook. As he progressed in his therapy, and became more mobile, his attitude and his personality changed.

Now, Renee says, "Chase is becoming the old Chase. Chase before the injury was daredevilish. That mischievous smile, that's the old Chase. He was the one that 'No' was not really in his vocabulary. And he was funny. He would just do things that would make you laugh."

Three years after his injury Chase walks over one hundred yards independently -- no walker, no one helping. "If we get him to concentrate," says Smith, "We can get him to where he is stepping foot flat, so instead of being on his toes you go to foot flat and then you go to heal strike like you and I walk."

"All he's asking me now is," says [Lee Smith, Chase's physical therapist], "How can I get to run?"
...
"Seriously, some of the funding we've gotten from you guys (the Reeve Foundation) has meant the difference between sending people home in a chair and sending people home with no assistive devices," says Smith.

"You've given us the ability on a number of occasions to not have to think about the money for therapy, and to be able to just solely focus on the recovery of the person in front of us."

"We're finding out about what we are capable of doing,' says Smith. "There are a lot of other people out there that we could be able to help if we just had the funding."