Huge turnout nets $43,000 for Brooks

Mount Shasta, Calif. -Driving around Mount Shasta this week, you may notice a new feature on many cars. Stickers and magnets reading “The Corbster” and “Corben Brooks #54 – Stay Strong” have been plastered everywhere, a reminder to the community of one young man’s struggle to get back on his feet.

Friday’s Booster Club Tailgate Party raised over $40,000 for Corben Brooks, the 17 year-old Mount Shasta High School senior who was seriously injured during a football scrimmage in August. Continue Reading »

Govt must ensure disabled have social independence

More and more people with severe disabilities are seeking to take part in social activities while living independently at home. Yet not much progress has been made since the law to promote their independence went into effect in fiscal 2006.

Among such people is Akira Kinoshita, 21, who suffered a neck injury during a judo practice session when he was a high school student. Kinoshita started living in an apartment in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, with his mother in April. Paralyzed from the neck down, he relies on an artificial respirator. But he is studying hard to enter university while receiving nursing care from a home-visit helper as well as his mother. Continue Reading »

Two Oakdale men headed to Beijing for paralympics

Jon Rydberg and Dan James will be representing their hometown of Oakdale and their country by heading to Beijing this September to compete in the U.S. Paralympics.

This is Rydberg’s second Paralympics and he will be competing in singles and doubles wheelchair tennis.

“It’s one of the coolest things you can do,” Rydberg said. “Representing your country, your state, everything like that. It’s a whole package deal.”

James is the coach of the U.S. Paralympic tennis team and Beijing will be the third Paralympics he has coached in. James echoed Rydberg’s sentiments about how it feels to be a part of the games. Continue Reading »

Family, friends rally to help chef fight back from injury

Family, friends rally to help chef fight back from injury

It happened in an instant. Dave Hartung was driving home from work the day after Christmas when a car darted from the shoulder of Interstate 97 and across two lanes to reach a ramp to U.S. 50.

The vehicle smashed his car. While describing the crash to state troopers, Hartung now realizes, he was in shock. He went home to Severn and only in a few hours did he realize he was in pain, he said. Continue Reading »

Briana Walker on Weekly ‘Holistic Living’ Talk Show August 26th, 2008

Tina Marie is excited to have Briana Walker, author of Dance Anyway on Her Weekly ‘Holistic Living’ Talk Show on the Voice America Network
Author of Dance Anyway, model, dancer and ambassador for Life Rolls On, Briana Walker will join Tina Marie on her Holistic Living radio show on the Voice America, online internet talk radio network, on August 26th, 2008.

Phoenix, AZ August 18th,2008 — Internet broadcasting pioneer, producing and syndicating online audio and video, today announced that the author of Dance Anyway , Briana Walker will share her inspiring story and message of hope on the Holistic Living with Tina Marie radio show on the Voice America online internet talk radio network, on August 26th, 2008. Continue Reading »

Homes for Our Troops to build house for paralyzed Marine

Marine Joshua Hoffman was paralyzed by a sniper’s bullet in Iraq in January 2007. At left is his mother, Reed City resident Hazel Hoffman, and fiancee, Heather Lovell pictured during a day out from a Virginia veterans hospital in 2007.

MIDDLEVILLE — Heather Lovell knows how her fiance, injured veteran Josh Hoffman, feels about moving to a home that’s to be built especially to meet his needs.

“He’s so excited. He doesn’t even have to say anything. You can see it in his face,” Lovell said. Continue Reading »

Diabetes and Spinal Cord Injury

People with spinal cord disorders are more Prone than most to developing type 2 diabetes. But the condition can be managed and even reversed with diet, exercise and medications.

“You are diabetic.” No one wants to hear these words and when they do, they are likely to be in shock or disbelief. “Sure, I’m in a wheelchair, overweight and I don’t get much exercise, but nobody in my family has diabetes,” may be a typical response.

Surprisingly, genetics plays only a limited role in the development of type 2 diabetes, but diabetes now afflicts almost 1 in 10 Americans and a recent study showed that 2 in 10 spinal cord injured veterans are diabetic. Continue Reading »

Youth minister adjusts to ‘new normal’ with spinal injury

Accident damages Gainesville man’s body but not his spirit

ATLANTA — Vester Lewis is getting used to what he calls “the new normal.”

Normal for him used to be enjoying his retirement from AT&T with his wife, Lynn, ministering to kids at Hopewell Baptist Church, playing with his grandchildren and taking lunchtime jogs near his home off Tanners Mill Road.

All that changed on the afternoon of May 7 when a car driven by an alleged drunken driver plowed into him as he jogged along the side of the road, sending him flying. The impact cracked his ribs, collapsed a lung, tore ligaments in his knee and broke his back. Continue Reading »

Defying Western Science, Chinese Biotech Pursues Untested Stem Cell Therapy

Although Beike Biotechnology’s promising stem cell treatment is unproven, patients are paying to receive the treatment in China.

Pursuing a controversial medical procedure that shows great promise but hasn’t been validated by clinical trials, a Chinese company is using stem cells to treat patients, many of them from the West, who have diseases previously thought incurable.The company, Beike Biotechnology, hosted the first China Stem Cell Technology Forum in late July.

Beike uses nonembryonic stem cells to treat a variety of ailments including heart disease and neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, and optic nerve hypoplasia, a primary cause of blindness in children. Continue Reading »

Rugby star Matt wins his hardest game ever – the battle for hope

Matt Hampson might well have been in Auckland this summer, playing for the England rugby team as they took on New Zealand. After all, many of his former team-mates were.

But Matt was instead at home in Rutland, confined to a wheelchair, paralysed from the neck down, unable to move any part of his body save for his head, his breathing dependent on a Ventilator.

The horrific accident that transformed Matt’s life happened nearly three years ago when, while training with his international colleagues in Northampton, the scrum collapsed and the former prop forward, who played for the Leicester Tigers and the England Under 21 side, suffered a dislocated neck and a trapped spinal cord.

Still smiling: Matt is hoping to walk again Continue Reading »