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The summer
before her senior year, at age seventeen, Terri Cecil-Ramsey was in an
automobile accident that left her paralyzed.
From day one neither she nor the rest of her family treated the
accident like a tragedy. When
you grow up on a farm, everything is a challenge, she observed, so
my accident was just another challenge.
Giving up her dream to play college basketball was the hardest
thing she ever did, but Cecil-Ramsey never gave up her love of sports.
When someone mentioned wheelchair fencing, she went to watch the
famous fencing coach in Louisville, Leszek Stawicki, who had added a
wheelchair fencing division to his already popular fencing program.
The two eventually became fast friends.
After 18 months of intense training, Cecil-Ramsey entered the
1996 Paralympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
Although she did not win the gold, she did become a national champion.
Her message: the only difference between a person using a wheelchair and an
able-bodied person IS the wheelchair.
Learn about the
Americans with Disabilities
Act.
Find
out more about the Paralympics from the International
Paralympics Committee and the US
Paralympics Committee.
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