Max
12-22-2002, 10:54 AM
Partially paralyzed TCU student gets her degree -- on her feet
Keith-Ann Wagner faced paralysis and the end of her athletic career after a car accident more than two years ago. But through hard work and determination, she walked across the stage to receive her diploma at commencement Saturday.
By KEVIN LYONS
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- Amid the roar of a standing ovation, Keith-Ann Wagner made the most poignant gesture yet in recovering from a car accident that left her partially paralyzed.
She rose out of her wheelchair and walked.
Gingerly, slowly, but still placing one foot in front of the other, Wagner clutched a walker and crossed the stage at Daniel Meyer Coliseum Saturday before a crowd of 6,000 to receive her bachelor's degree from Texas Christian University.
Ladies whooped and grown men cried. Several news photographers wiped away tears.
"I've been at close to 50 of these (commencements) and have never been moved like this," said TCU Chancellor Michael "Mick" Ferrari. "I've never encountered anything like this in my career."
Wagner's commencement walk came after two years of recovery from a car accident that had left the former TCU soccer player unable to move her arms and legs. Although she uses a wheelchair for most of her day-to-day activities, she has regained the use of her arms and left leg.
She practiced for commencement for about a month with her cousin, Jami Upshaw, who crossed the stage behind her pushing the wheelchair.
On Saturday, to deafening applause, Wagner waved and collected her diploma for a double-degree in accounting and finance, magna cum laude.
"I just wanted everybody to sit down," Wagner said afterward, with a smile that cut dimples deep into her cheeks. "It was emotional. But I'm relieved that this is over and everything went well."
Just pray for me
Wagner's road to recovery -- her road to that glorious moment of pomp and circumstance -- began shortly after emergency technicians pried her limp body from the wreckage of a two-car accident on July 4, 2000.
"I have good days and I have bad days," Wagner said last week as she ate soup at a restaurant near TCU.
"Usually, when I'm in a bad mood, I start thinking about if I could just get up and go to the bathroom without having to put so much effort into it," she said. "Sometimes my bad mood has nothing to do with the wheelchair, and sometimes it does. But I'm a pretty positive person, and so most of my days are good."
On that evening in north Fort Worth, Wagner was riding in a convertible with her then-boyfriend, Reed Artim, and friend Jimmy Harlin, who was driving. Another car ran a stop sign and struck the convertible, causing it to flip over and roll into a ditch, according to police reports.
Artim and Harlin got out unhurt. Wagner was trapped.
"It was like slow motion," Wagner said. "The impact was not that hard. And I never blacked out, never lost consciousness. I was underneath the car, and I couldn't feel my legs, but I could see them. I couldn't move anything, so I pretty much knew it was not going to be good. Artim looked in and asked me if I was OK. I said, 'Just pray for me.' I knew it wasn't good."
She was flown by helicopter to Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital. There, doctors told her she had shattered one vertebrae, fractured three others, and pinched her spinal cord. They put a plate in her neck and fitted her with a special halo device to keep her head and neck immobile.
Because she did not sever her spinal cord, there was a small chance that she'd regain some feeling in her arms and legs, doctors told her. But more than likely, they said, she'd never walk again, much less play soccer.
"That was the low point for me I think," said Wagner's mother, Shirley. "The realization that she was so athletic, and that now, she can't participate in sports and be that active."
Dog days of rehabilitation
Wagner came from an athletic background. Her mother played high school basketball in Booker in the Texas Panhandle, and her dad, Roll, was on the high school golf team in Enid, Okla.
Wagner participated in gymnastics until she hurt her knee in the eighth grade. She also played basketball and volleyball before playing soccer as a high school sophomore.
As a goalkeeper her senior year, she was named first-team All Star-Telegram and helped lead the Martin High School girls' soccer team to the 1998 state title. At the time of her accident, she was the starting goalkeeper for the TCU women's soccer team.
Wagner was used to challenges. Despite the dire prognosis from her doctors, she thought she'd be able to rejoin her TCU teammates in just a matter of months.
"I knew I'd broken my neck, but in my mind, they said I only pinched my spinal cord -- I didn't sever it," she said.
It didn't take her long to realize she had underestimated the extent of her injuries. A week after the accident, she was moved to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas to begin rehabilitation. There, she needed help brushing her teeth, sitting up in bed and pushing her wheelchair.
"They bring in the dogs sometimes and that was the hardest thing," she said. "I could barely get my hands up high enough to pet the dog. I was like, 'Oh my gosh.' That was the first time I was like, 'Wow, this is not going to go too well."'
But she persisted. To regain strength in her arms, she practiced putting blocks in a bucket, pushing herself each day to put in more than the day before.
A month after the accident, she could lift both her arms, and was slowly starting to regain feeling in her lower extremities. First she could move her left big toe, then her left foot, then her left ankle. To this day, she has little movement in her right leg.
Wagner's excellent physical condition before her accident helped her recovery, said her therapist, Patti Winchester, a professor and chair of the department of physical therapy at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
"Keith-Ann had the determination it takes to demonstrate functional improvement," Winchester said. "Not all patients with the kind of injury she has achieve what she was able to achieve."
When fall classes at TCU began in August -- two months after the accident -- Wagner enrolled in two courses. Artim taped the lectures and brought the lesson plans to her hospital bed, and two university officials came to the hospital to give her exams. Because her right hand was not functionable, she learned to take exams using her left hand.
By the end of September 2000, Wagner was released from the hospital. She split time living with her parents and two of her closest college teammates, Jeanine Rogers and Ali Schoegel. She kept attending classes, graduating in 4 ½ years.
And as her strength returned, she returned to the field to watch her old teammates compete.
"It was a good and bad feeling with Keith-Ann at the games," Rogers said. "It was good to have her there. But at the same time, we knew how hard it was for her to be there. And it was hard for us not to have her there like we were used to seeing her. Still, that said something about her coming out to support us."
Major obstacles were still ahead for Wagner, however. It took three more operations to help stabilize her spine, and a staph infection slowed her recovery. She stayed in the uncomfortable halo device six months longer than she anticipated.
The last month in the halo was the most painful part of the recovery, Wagner said.
"The screws from the halo got loose and they were scraping my skull," she said. "It was the worst pain ... During that last week, I'd be in a car and we'd go over the tiniest bump and I just felt like it was going to kill me."
Like turning 16 all over again.
From the start, Artim, her boyfriend, helped Wagner get through the long days. But the pressures of dealing with the accident got to both of them and they broke up after six months.
"It was not a bad breakup because he had been wonderful," Wagner said. "He was under a lot of pressure and I was not making it any easier because I was emotionally out of it. See, around everyone else, I could put a smile on my face, but he was the person -- him and my mom -- whom I could cry to."
Wagner said the two slowly drifted apart, and by the one-year anniversary of her accident, they were not speaking.
She turned her anger on him.
"It was horrible," she said. "Every time I saw him, I felt like I wanted to throw up. I was mad at the fact that he could just go on with his life and I was having to deal with all this crap."
Wagner said she attended Bible study at TCU to gain peace about the accident and her relationship with Artim. The two are now friends, she said.
"I prayed a whole lot," she said.
By then, her physical recovery was going full swing. She could hold on to parallel bars and stand on her left leg. Gradually, she began to walk using a walker and a special device with electrodes to stimulate her weakened right leg.
After doctors removed the halo, Wagner began exercising her upper body several times a week, first at the TCU gym, and now in Euless at the Neuro Fitness Foundation, which specializes in resistance training for the disabled.
Wagner's parents bought her a van last April, and the North Texas Rehabilitation Center, a nonprofit outpatient rehabilitation facility, made it handicapped accessible.
Until Saturday's commencement ceremony, driving had been the highlight of her rehabilitation.
"That was huge, like turning 16 all over again," said Wagner, who now lives with her cousin. "It gives me so much more independence. Now, I can go whenever I'm ready to go."
What lies ahead
Graduation is just the beginning, Wagner says.
She has accepted an offer to do tax work at accounting firm KPMG next September, after she takes a few more accounting courses at the University of Texas at Arlington.
She still uses a wheelchair for most of her daily activities, and hopes that advances in paralysis research will one day give her back her old life. She'd like to get married. Kids would be nice.
Until then, she's working out and hanging out with her friends. There is no time, she said, to feel sorry for herself.
"This is just a daily part of my life," she said. "I can do a lot of things."
She paused for a moment.
"Well," she sighed, "I can't do anything with my hair because my right arm is still shaky.
"Oh, well, what's a girl to do?"
Kevin Lyons, (817) 390-7675
kevinlyons@star-telegram.com
Keith-Ann Wagner faced paralysis and the end of her athletic career after a car accident more than two years ago. But through hard work and determination, she walked across the stage to receive her diploma at commencement Saturday.
By KEVIN LYONS
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- Amid the roar of a standing ovation, Keith-Ann Wagner made the most poignant gesture yet in recovering from a car accident that left her partially paralyzed.
She rose out of her wheelchair and walked.
Gingerly, slowly, but still placing one foot in front of the other, Wagner clutched a walker and crossed the stage at Daniel Meyer Coliseum Saturday before a crowd of 6,000 to receive her bachelor's degree from Texas Christian University.
Ladies whooped and grown men cried. Several news photographers wiped away tears.
"I've been at close to 50 of these (commencements) and have never been moved like this," said TCU Chancellor Michael "Mick" Ferrari. "I've never encountered anything like this in my career."
Wagner's commencement walk came after two years of recovery from a car accident that had left the former TCU soccer player unable to move her arms and legs. Although she uses a wheelchair for most of her day-to-day activities, she has regained the use of her arms and left leg.
She practiced for commencement for about a month with her cousin, Jami Upshaw, who crossed the stage behind her pushing the wheelchair.
On Saturday, to deafening applause, Wagner waved and collected her diploma for a double-degree in accounting and finance, magna cum laude.
"I just wanted everybody to sit down," Wagner said afterward, with a smile that cut dimples deep into her cheeks. "It was emotional. But I'm relieved that this is over and everything went well."
Just pray for me
Wagner's road to recovery -- her road to that glorious moment of pomp and circumstance -- began shortly after emergency technicians pried her limp body from the wreckage of a two-car accident on July 4, 2000.
"I have good days and I have bad days," Wagner said last week as she ate soup at a restaurant near TCU.
"Usually, when I'm in a bad mood, I start thinking about if I could just get up and go to the bathroom without having to put so much effort into it," she said. "Sometimes my bad mood has nothing to do with the wheelchair, and sometimes it does. But I'm a pretty positive person, and so most of my days are good."
On that evening in north Fort Worth, Wagner was riding in a convertible with her then-boyfriend, Reed Artim, and friend Jimmy Harlin, who was driving. Another car ran a stop sign and struck the convertible, causing it to flip over and roll into a ditch, according to police reports.
Artim and Harlin got out unhurt. Wagner was trapped.
"It was like slow motion," Wagner said. "The impact was not that hard. And I never blacked out, never lost consciousness. I was underneath the car, and I couldn't feel my legs, but I could see them. I couldn't move anything, so I pretty much knew it was not going to be good. Artim looked in and asked me if I was OK. I said, 'Just pray for me.' I knew it wasn't good."
She was flown by helicopter to Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital. There, doctors told her she had shattered one vertebrae, fractured three others, and pinched her spinal cord. They put a plate in her neck and fitted her with a special halo device to keep her head and neck immobile.
Because she did not sever her spinal cord, there was a small chance that she'd regain some feeling in her arms and legs, doctors told her. But more than likely, they said, she'd never walk again, much less play soccer.
"That was the low point for me I think," said Wagner's mother, Shirley. "The realization that she was so athletic, and that now, she can't participate in sports and be that active."
Dog days of rehabilitation
Wagner came from an athletic background. Her mother played high school basketball in Booker in the Texas Panhandle, and her dad, Roll, was on the high school golf team in Enid, Okla.
Wagner participated in gymnastics until she hurt her knee in the eighth grade. She also played basketball and volleyball before playing soccer as a high school sophomore.
As a goalkeeper her senior year, she was named first-team All Star-Telegram and helped lead the Martin High School girls' soccer team to the 1998 state title. At the time of her accident, she was the starting goalkeeper for the TCU women's soccer team.
Wagner was used to challenges. Despite the dire prognosis from her doctors, she thought she'd be able to rejoin her TCU teammates in just a matter of months.
"I knew I'd broken my neck, but in my mind, they said I only pinched my spinal cord -- I didn't sever it," she said.
It didn't take her long to realize she had underestimated the extent of her injuries. A week after the accident, she was moved to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas to begin rehabilitation. There, she needed help brushing her teeth, sitting up in bed and pushing her wheelchair.
"They bring in the dogs sometimes and that was the hardest thing," she said. "I could barely get my hands up high enough to pet the dog. I was like, 'Oh my gosh.' That was the first time I was like, 'Wow, this is not going to go too well."'
But she persisted. To regain strength in her arms, she practiced putting blocks in a bucket, pushing herself each day to put in more than the day before.
A month after the accident, she could lift both her arms, and was slowly starting to regain feeling in her lower extremities. First she could move her left big toe, then her left foot, then her left ankle. To this day, she has little movement in her right leg.
Wagner's excellent physical condition before her accident helped her recovery, said her therapist, Patti Winchester, a professor and chair of the department of physical therapy at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
"Keith-Ann had the determination it takes to demonstrate functional improvement," Winchester said. "Not all patients with the kind of injury she has achieve what she was able to achieve."
When fall classes at TCU began in August -- two months after the accident -- Wagner enrolled in two courses. Artim taped the lectures and brought the lesson plans to her hospital bed, and two university officials came to the hospital to give her exams. Because her right hand was not functionable, she learned to take exams using her left hand.
By the end of September 2000, Wagner was released from the hospital. She split time living with her parents and two of her closest college teammates, Jeanine Rogers and Ali Schoegel. She kept attending classes, graduating in 4 ½ years.
And as her strength returned, she returned to the field to watch her old teammates compete.
"It was a good and bad feeling with Keith-Ann at the games," Rogers said. "It was good to have her there. But at the same time, we knew how hard it was for her to be there. And it was hard for us not to have her there like we were used to seeing her. Still, that said something about her coming out to support us."
Major obstacles were still ahead for Wagner, however. It took three more operations to help stabilize her spine, and a staph infection slowed her recovery. She stayed in the uncomfortable halo device six months longer than she anticipated.
The last month in the halo was the most painful part of the recovery, Wagner said.
"The screws from the halo got loose and they were scraping my skull," she said. "It was the worst pain ... During that last week, I'd be in a car and we'd go over the tiniest bump and I just felt like it was going to kill me."
Like turning 16 all over again.
From the start, Artim, her boyfriend, helped Wagner get through the long days. But the pressures of dealing with the accident got to both of them and they broke up after six months.
"It was not a bad breakup because he had been wonderful," Wagner said. "He was under a lot of pressure and I was not making it any easier because I was emotionally out of it. See, around everyone else, I could put a smile on my face, but he was the person -- him and my mom -- whom I could cry to."
Wagner said the two slowly drifted apart, and by the one-year anniversary of her accident, they were not speaking.
She turned her anger on him.
"It was horrible," she said. "Every time I saw him, I felt like I wanted to throw up. I was mad at the fact that he could just go on with his life and I was having to deal with all this crap."
Wagner said she attended Bible study at TCU to gain peace about the accident and her relationship with Artim. The two are now friends, she said.
"I prayed a whole lot," she said.
By then, her physical recovery was going full swing. She could hold on to parallel bars and stand on her left leg. Gradually, she began to walk using a walker and a special device with electrodes to stimulate her weakened right leg.
After doctors removed the halo, Wagner began exercising her upper body several times a week, first at the TCU gym, and now in Euless at the Neuro Fitness Foundation, which specializes in resistance training for the disabled.
Wagner's parents bought her a van last April, and the North Texas Rehabilitation Center, a nonprofit outpatient rehabilitation facility, made it handicapped accessible.
Until Saturday's commencement ceremony, driving had been the highlight of her rehabilitation.
"That was huge, like turning 16 all over again," said Wagner, who now lives with her cousin. "It gives me so much more independence. Now, I can go whenever I'm ready to go."
What lies ahead
Graduation is just the beginning, Wagner says.
She has accepted an offer to do tax work at accounting firm KPMG next September, after she takes a few more accounting courses at the University of Texas at Arlington.
She still uses a wheelchair for most of her daily activities, and hopes that advances in paralysis research will one day give her back her old life. She'd like to get married. Kids would be nice.
Until then, she's working out and hanging out with her friends. There is no time, she said, to feel sorry for herself.
"This is just a daily part of my life," she said. "I can do a lot of things."
She paused for a moment.
"Well," she sighed, "I can't do anything with my hair because my right arm is still shaky.
"Oh, well, what's a girl to do?"
Kevin Lyons, (817) 390-7675
kevinlyons@star-telegram.com