October 2, 2010

Zack is a typical 15 year old teenager living in Yorba Linda.  He enjoys hanging out with friends, playing video games, dirt bike riding, camping and going to the beach with his friends.  Zack also has taken boxing lessons and he is on the Yorba Linda Mustangs wrestling team.

On May 31, 2010, Memorial Day, Zack sustained a life-changing injury.  While diving into the surf at Newport Beach, he brock his neck at the 4^th vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord.  He was immediately paralyzed, fully conscious, and floating face down in the surf.  Fortunately for Zack, his friend Travis was close by, turned him over and got him back to the sand, saving his life.  He was taken to CHOC Hospital in Orange for a six-hour operation and 12 day stay.

Zack has been transported to Casa Colina Inpatient Rehab in Pomona.  He will be there for about six weeks learning life skills that will help him cope with his disability while he progresses in his recovery.  Presently he has some movement in his forearms, but is paralyzed from his chest down.

When he is released from Casa Colina he will return home and enter out-patient physical therapy program at Project Walk in Carlsbad.  Project Walk is an intensive exercise-based recovery program designed to stimulate the nervous system.  The method was created from years of experience working solely with spinal cord injuries.  It is a program dedicated to pushing a person as hard as possible to recover s much as possible.  This is the programs clients have chosen who have made the most recovery, even though it may take years.