As any parent knows, active kids climb, jump, and bounce on furniture. When they tumble, they pick themselves up and keep right on playing. But when 2-year-old Chase Ford fell and hit his head on a wooden sofa arm, he didn’t get up.

Chase gradually lost all motor function from the neck down.  He couldn’t even eat.  Finally, the only thing he could move was his eyes. After two weeks of testing and physical therapy the severity of Chase’s injuries became achingly clear: his distraught parents were told that Chase would never walk again.

“A thousand thoughts ran through my mind,” Chase’s mother, Renee, remembers.  “What would Chase’s life be like?  Could he attend the same school as his brother and sister?  Would he have the same opportunities?”

Thankfully, a search for more information brought the Fords to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Learning about the  Reeve Foundation’s NeuroRecovery Network and its Locomotor Training (treadmill therapy) Program proved to be the first, precious, spark of hope.

When Chase began locomotor training at the Frazier Rehabilitation Institute in Louisville, the results were immediate and encouraging: in just the first session he began to move his legs!

This revolutionary rehabilitation technology helps so many like Chase gain improved function and control.  And the Reeve Foundation has been involved in every phase of the development of this therapy – funding the initial laboratory research, shepherding it to human application, and making it available to the public through our NeuroRecovery Network.

“Look Mommy!  I’m walking!  I’m walking!” That’s what Chase says these days, as he makes his own way across the room with the help of a walker.  It’s music to Renee’s ears.

Read the update about now 5-year-old Chase!