Spinal cord injury miracles do happen

On the morning of August 27, 2010, the Rev. John Murray tripped on a New Jersey boardwalk that he would often walk twice a day. As he fell, he hit his head on one of the boardwalk railings and broke his neck. In what he labels a “freak accident,” this Roman Catholic priest became paralyzed from the chest down due to his spinal cord injury.

Not content to spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair or in a nursing home where he could no longer care for his flock of parishioners, Rev. Murray began his long road to rehabilitation and recovery.

Rev. Murray worked with the physicians, therapists, and staff at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, New Jersey to begin with. They, along with his faith he says, helped him over many long months to learn to speak again along with working on strengthening him to be able to one day walk again. He has been able to gradually move from not being able to speak, to moving to a wheel chair, to eventually being able to use a walker and now even crutches at times.

While he still has not fully recovered, he hopes and prays that through his rehabilitation and faith that he will soon be able to fully walk once more. He already considers his progress and his story miraculous in nature. The Rev. John Murray is well on his way in his rehabilitation journey, but he still has a long road ahead of him and he continues to see a therapist three days a week.

This story highlights the vast network of care professionals and support systems that it takes for each spinal cord injury patient to be adequately cared for and rehabilitated. Along with such care comes great cost and expenses, often due to those ‘freak accidents’ that we cannot prepare for. An experienced personal injury attorney may help in your recovery of such expenses should you be in need of one for your particular injuries.

Source: CapitalGazette.com “Learning to walk a religious experience for injured priest,” Theresa Winslow, Dec. 1, 2012