Football Guy Who Is Walking Again After Spind Injury

Ryan Shazier Compares Spinal String Injury Recovery Process to Football: 'Always Take a Game Program'

Ryan Shazier suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed in 2017, but the former Pittsburgh Steelers player says he recovered past marking his own "touchdowns" in life moments

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Ryan Shazier is back on his feet and sharing his story after suffering a serious spinal cord injury in 2017 that left him unable to walk.

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Shazier appeared on GMA Tuesday, where he detailed his recovery to Strahan, 50, including how he used his dear for football to mark progress in his journey to walk over again after doctors said he would remain in a wheelchair for life.

"Through life and football, you always have a game plan," Shazier told Strahan. "You always take goals of where you want to be at, you lot always have a road map. To me, I knew I needed to make a roadmap and care for this like any other rehab. And when you get injured, they always tell you steps about where you accept to exist, where yous're going to become, and I only wanted to make a roadmap and goals for me to get there."

"So every time I reach a trivial modest goal, I phone call them beginning downs," he connected. "And every time I have a big goal, like walking at the draft, or dancing at my wedding, I would consider those as touchdowns. And I just try and use it every bit the game of football game when it came to my rehab."

Shazier sustained a spinal contusion during a 2017 game confronting the Cincinnati Bengals. The NFL star collapsed later on a tackle and was brought off the field. He underwent stabilization surgery two days after his injury, PEOPLE previously reported, and regained move in his legs after rehab.

ryan shazier

Credit: Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

But one year after his fateful tackle, Shazier walked at the 2018 NFL draft, where he was accompanied by his now-wife, Michelle Rodriguez. Shazier told Strahan the draft marked the farthest he had walked without his cane, making for a "scary" and "exciting" moment.

He said, "It was actually a actually scary moment merely I likewise just wanted to thank people for allowing me and simply praying for me and just allowing me to exist able to practice this, and so information technology was actually heady."

Shazier told GMA his own recovery experience inspired him to help others going through similar journeys. He launched the Ryan Shazier Fund for Spinal Rehabilitation in 2020 with the goal of assisting people suffering from spinal cord injuries.

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"I've seen what a lot of people were dealing with. I understood that information technology's a really hard journeying," Shazier told Strahan. "I was blessed to have the NFL'southward back up and the Steelers' back up and so many people around the earth supporting me, but and then when I walked or rode by other infirmary rooms, I wouldn't see equally many patients having family members there."

"I wouldn't see people coming upward to rehab as ofttimes as I was coming, so I started asking questions near what they were going through," he continued. "I started to observe that some people weren't allowed the same corporeality of rehab because of insurance and how things were working for them. And I also noticed some people didn't have the same corporeality of resources, then I wanted to provide something that immune people to have more resource and rehab to permit them to have independence like I once did."

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Source: https://people.com/sports/ryan-shazier-recovered-from-spinal-injury-by-comparing-process-to-football-always-have-a-game-plan/

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