MHS grad to use new therapy
to battle paralysis
By Kerry Yancey
Monitor Staff Writer
MABANK–A Mabank High School graduate paralyzed in a motocross accident last spring is looking forward to starting a revolutionary rehabilitation program in a new home during the new year.
Tyler Thomas, who turned 22 Dec. 16, will be moving to Austin in January to be the first client at Roll to Walk, a new rehabilitation center with a program based on Project Walk in California.
“At Project Walk, they have more of a ‘fix-it’ attitude than a ‘live-with-it’ attitude,” Thomas said.
“When you walk through the door, right there is a Hall of Fame wall with nothing but pictures of people holding their wheelchairs over their head,” Thomas said.
A 2005 Mabank High School graduate, Thomas was a 21-year-old junior at Stephen F. Austin State University when he lost control of his motorcycle and crashed at a motocross track in Canton May 16.
Thomas was flown to Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, and found to have broken three vertebra in his spine and damaged his spinal cord.
Surgery May 21 and May 28 repaired the vertebra, but Thomas remains paralyzed from the waist down.
“As much as I talk bad about him (the surgeon), he did a fantastic job,” Thomas said. “The biggest thing you hear is people being really nice, and telling you – nicely – that you’re never going to walk again.”
Mom Debra Thomas, an employee at Clay Structures in Mabank, said her son is still working through the standard steps everyone goes through when faced with a life-changing situation – anger first, followed by denial, self-pity and later, acceptance.
“Tyler has never once asked ‘why me?’” she said. “Instead he asks, ‘where do we go from here?’
“Tyler hasn’t gotten to the acceptance step yet,” she added. “That is motivation for him to move forward with his recovery.”
After going through several weeks of rehabilitation at the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation in Dallas, Tyler returned home July 2, and found daily life much more difficult than he anticipated, despite some renovations to the Thomas home to make it more wheelchair-accessible.
“We were lucky when we went home,” he recalled. “When we built the house, it actually is fairly accessible, but it’s still a lot more of a challenge.”
At Baylor, there were nurses and physical therapists usually right there to pick up a dropped pencil or bring your toothbrush, Tyler explained.
“As helpful as my parents (Dennis and Debra) and my sisters (Jessica and Macey) were, they still had to go back to work,” he said.
As anyone faced with a lengthy stay at home has discovered, daytime television gets old pretty quick, and Tyler soon started coming up to Clay Structures during the day.
There, he began working with Tyson Johnson on rehabilitation exercises, and using the Internet to research possible rehabilitation programs.
The family discovered Project Walk, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Carlsbad, Calif., which uses an intensive series of physical therapies, education and support to help individuals with spinal cord damage improve their quality of life.
Tyler visited Project Walk twice, in July and October, and uses exercises he learned there in his workouts with Johnson.
“No matter how they come in (to Project Walk), they’re all living a better quality of life than they were,” Debra Thomas said.
“It’s upbeat,” Tyler said. “Nobody is worried about saying the wrong thing.
“When people see somebody in a wheelchair, they’re usually very cautious to ask what’s going on and what happened,” he added.
“A lot of people think that nerves don’t regenerate, and that’s just not true,” Tyler said. “The problem is usually scar tissue, or excessive swelling that cuts off circulation to the nerves.”
“At Project Walk, they believe that the nervous system can be re-stimulated by re-routing,” Debra Thomas said.
“Using different nerves for different functions,” Tyler added.
Without re-training, the body tends to settle in a wheelchair position, Debra Thomas said, noting she has found Tyler’s legs trying to fold up into a seated position when he is lying in bed.
“What this (program) does is train your body to do what you want it to do,” she said. “It really is a matter of life and death how (Tyler) cares for himself.”
During the past decade or so, studies have shown people with brain damage have the ability to re-learn an activity, apparently by re-routing specific nerve impulses through other parts of the brain. That approach also appears to work with spinal cord injuries.
Former “Superman” movie action star Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident, was a leading supporter of therapies to teach different nerves to carry voluntary nerve impulses.
Doctors and therapists from around the world have come to Project Walk to learn the program’s exercises and approaches, and carry that knowledge back to their own countries, Debra Thomas said.
Roll to Walk was established by a quadriplegic, Keith-Ann Wagner and her husband Chad, based on the Project Walk programs she learned after her injury July 4, 1999.
“Their effort is to make it more affordable,” Tyler said, explaining most health insurance programs do not cover spinal cord rehabilitation efforts.
“These things take time – this is not a quick fix,” he added. “The medical system wants to cut you open and fix it, or take a pill and fix it.”
In Austin, Tyler will be living with a long-time friend, MHS graduate Colby Grimes, and has already applied to Austin Community College for an on-line course to get back into education, with the eventual aim of becoming a regular full-time student again next fall.
He was a business management major, but his involvement with physical rehabilitation has now prompted him to consider other educational opportunities.
Tyler and Debra Thomas invite anyone who wants to know more about Roll to Walk and Tyler’s situation to visit his website, www.caringbridge.org/tylerpthomas , or e-mail them at ride2ride63@aol.com  (him) or debrajwt@aol.com  (her).
“I’m really looking forward to being able to do the rehab all the time,” Tyler said. “I enjoy just being around the people.”
“Our community appears to be small, but I know we have people who might need to be aware of this,” Debra Thomas said. “Tyler was insistent about looking into this.
“He is better off having involved himself in this rehabilitation, without a doubt,” she added.


Courtesy Photo/Debra Thomas
Tyler Thomas and a therapist work to strengthen the muscles in Tyler’s lower
back and buttocks, enabling him to stand upright.


Courtesy Photo/Debra Thomas
Tyler Thomas visits with Roll to Walk founder
Keith-Ann Wagner.