I invite you to picture yourself immersed in your favorite hobby. The activity that brings you joy and purpose. It’s something you can’t imagine life without. Boom. All of a sudden you are incapacitated. Be it a car crash, fall, or medically related injury, your life is not the same as it was before.
It’s hard not to dwell on the before. When life was carefree and simple. Now things are different. A whole new world of obstacles and challenges to navigate.
Sarah Ferguson can play 20 instruments. She did marching band in high school and dreamt about one day becoming a Marching Tar Heel at Carolina. Life had other plans for her. In the fall of her freshman year at UNC, Sarah suffered a stroke which left her with a T11 spinal cord injury. She was paralyzed from the waist down. Sarah wanted so badly to join the band, but feared they wouldn’t let her on the field. There were now so many moving parts that made the hobby that came easily to her as an able-bodied musician much more difficult post-injury.
With a little encouragement from her roommate, who understood how badly Sarah wanted to join, she reached out to the band director. They worked together to come up with a way to get her on the field with everyone else. A fellow Tar Heel, Annie Flanagan, stepped up. She had been battling arthritis and could no longer play her instrument, but still wanted to be on the field. Annie became Sarah’s legs. Together they did it. They surmounted the obstacles that lay in the way of following their shared passion. They got on the field and played.
Studies show that approximately two new spinal cord injuries occur each hour in the United States. That is about 18,000 injuries a year. 18,000 individuals with hobbies, sports, activities and careers that they may not be able to do anymore. At least not in the same way they used to.
Sarah and Annie became youtube celebrities and inspired wheelchair users and families across the nation.
“It’s a feeling that you never get used to because you start to realize that you’re really doing something that is impacting a whole community.”
Sarah overcame the barriers between her and doing what she loved, and hopes that others in similar positions feel inspired by seeing her realize such goals.
