TORONTO – On Saturday, Chris Norton proposed to his longtime girlfriend Emily Summers. The next day, he walked across the stage at his college graduation.
It’s a big weekend by any standard. But Norton’s story is even more remarkable because four years ago, doctors told him he had a three per cent chance of ever walking again.
Four years ago, Norton suffered a horrific injury while playing for the Luther College football team. During a kickoff return, Norton fractured his C3 and C4 vertebrae on a botched tackle.
The incident left him paralyzed from the neck down, with little chance of ever regaining use of his arms or legs. But despite the odds, Norton set himself a seemingly lofty goal.
“I made it publicly known that I wanted to walk across the stage at graduation,” Norton told KWWL News in Waterloo, Iowa.
“I didn’t know how I was going to walk across the stage, but I knew it was going to happen.”
The road back wasn’t easy. Immediately following his accident, Norton spent a year in a physical rehabilitation centre in Rochester, Minnesota. And in order to meet his goal of walking across the stage on graduation day, Norton devoted an entire semester to a full-time physical therapy program in Plymouth, Michigan.
But as the thousands at the Luther College graduation ceremony in Decorah, Iowa can attest – that hard work wasn’t in vain.
In a video produced by fellow Luther College student Michael Crocker, we see the incredible moment the wheelchair-bound Norton rises from his chair, to the thunderous applause of his fellow students.
And with the help of his fiancé Emily, Norton walked across the stage one step at a time.
“The energy in the room was unreal,” Norton told KWWL from his parents’ home in Altoona, Iowa. “I couldn’t soak it in until I was done walking. I was just completely focused on making sure every step was perfect.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Norton had popped the question to Ms. Summers only the day before, surprising his bride-to-be with a romantic candlelight dinner at her favourite restaurant.
Since his injury, Norton has devoted himself to public speaking as well as charitable work. He helped found the SCI CAN Foundation to help “improve the quality of therapy for individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI) and other neuromuscular deficiencies,” according to a post on the foundation’s website.
He has a book, co-written with his father, called The Power of Faith When Tragedy Strikes, which will hit book store shelves later this year.
You can read more about Norton’s remarkable journey on his blog, where he tracks the progress in his physical rehabilitation.
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