PARTICIPANT - Ray Crockett, 41
RESIDES - Dallas, Texas
OCCUPATION - Retired NFL Cornerback/Real Estate Developer
AIRDATE - Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Ray played football for Baylor University from 1984-88 before his NFL draft in 1989. He won two Super Bowl rings in 1998 and 1999 as a starting member of the Denver Broncos. During his fourteen years in the NFL, he also played for the Detroit Lions and the Kansas City Chiefs. Today, Ray and his wife April have three children, a 20-year old daughter named Joi and two sons, 13-year-old Ray Junior and seven year old Darryl. Ray now works as a real estate developer and coaches his older son Ray Junior.
In 1991, Ray was on the field with the Detroit Lions when his teammate and friend, Mike Utley, was involved in a play that left him paralyzed from the chest down - an event that has not dissipated from Ray's memory. In fact, it is this incident that made Ray want to participate in 30 Days.
For 30 Days, Ray will live in a wheelchair and will rely on his mental discipline to keep his legs immobile. His home and his car will be retrofitted to accommodate his needs. Coaching duties for his son's football team will continue and Ray will join the Texas Stampede, the wheelchair rugby team featuring players made famous in the documentary film Murderball. He will attend a weekly support group for paraplegics at the Baylor Institute of Rehabilitation and meet with a physical therapist to monitor any potential side effects.
Throughout his 30 Days experience, Ray will be under the medical supervision of Dr. Robert Bruce in order to track any muscle loss, blood clots, pressure sores or other side effects that could occur while he is wheelchair-bound.
Would you be willing to experience using a wheelchair for 30 days?**********************************************************************
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Comments: 16
I spent several months in a hip-to-toe cast getting around on crutches. This is not as bad as being in a wheel chair by any means, and it wasn't permanent. It did give me a small taste of some of the problems. I was surprised at how helpful some people could be, and how absolutely rude other people were. I learned to hate those glass doors that were not automatic and open outward. I was also surprised when I had to go to the VA Medical Center to pick up some paperwork only to be confronted by a long stretch of icy stairs with no hand rails and no wheel chair ramp in sight anywhere! I'm sure there was one somewhere, but I didn't feel like circumnavigating the building to find it. And as for public bathrooms - the less said the better. I had trouble with the "handicapped accessible" ones with just crutches. I didn't see any reasonable way anyone in a wheelchair could get into some of them. I kept wondering what kind of handicap they were supposed to be accessible to - the deaf?
If anyone needs to spend a month in a wheelchair, it should be all of those members of Congress who keep wanting to cut veteran's programs, the people who design buildings, and the people who tell everyone to use mass transit, then design the mass transit with no way to access it for people in wheel chairs.