Rachelle Friedman Chapman Paralyzed Bride Hopes To Walk Again
A woman from North Carolina was paralyzed in a pool side accident just a few weeks before her wedding is still hopeful that she will walk again and even start a family.
Rachelle Friedman Chapman is hopeful and physically stronger after she underwent treatment and exercise last October at a facility known as Project Walk. The facility is a spinal-cord-injury recovery center in California.
Chapman, a 26-year-old from Knightdale which is outside of Raleigh, hopes to go back to Project Walk for more treatment and training that would aid in her recovery and aspirations of once again walking one day.
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“You see people standing up out of their wheelchair, people who are relearning how to walk,” Chapman said in a recent phone interview with AP.
May 23, 2010 is a day that Chapman will never forget. During her bachelorette party in Virginia Beach she was pushed into a pool by one of her friends. Unfortunately, she fell into the shallow end and awkwardly hit the cement bottom. The injury to her spinal cord left Chapman with no feeling from the chest down as well as on the outside of her arms.
After the accident Chapman and her fiancé postponed their wedding for more than a year. Showing the type of person she is Chapman has never revealed the name of the friend. The woman was even a bridesmaid when the wedding was finally held in July 2011, according to AP.
The timing of her injury and her hopeful positivity has been an inspiration for others to follow. It has even garnered her notoriety in newspapers, websites and television reports.
She and her husband are considering having a child, but she has to get off the medications first. “It’s not going to be a fun pregnancy,” Chapman said. “I’ll probably be dizzy and in pain all the time. It will be nine months of sacrifice. But we would love to have our own child.”
