According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, approximately 17,810 people are diagnosed with a new spinal cord injury (SCI) in the United States each year. The effects of these injuries can be more than just medical — affecting other aspects of the injured’s life, including employment and marital status. 

Unfortunately, many people do not have access to the medical care they would need to resume their normal lives — or at least something resembling them. Thankfully, there is a source of hope for the SCI community.

Walking With Anthony is a charitable organization that hopes to forever change the recovery outcome for individuals suffering from spinal cord injuries. Because these debilitating injuries are often so sudden, many people are not prepared to handle the financial obligations that come along with them. 

Walking With Anthony’s website lists a breakdown of the cost of care for SCI patients — depending on the severity of the injury, it can range from $1.5 million to $4.5 million over a lifetime for a 25-year-old. The organization hopes to change that staggering statistic.

How Anthony Purcell’s story inspired him and his mother to support the SCI community

Walking With Anthony is named for Anthony Purcell, the son of the organization’s founder and President Micki Purcell. In 2010, Anthony dove into the waters of Miami Beach, misjudging the depth of his landing spot, causing him to break his neck, bruise two vertebrae in his spine, and injure his spinal cord. Paralyzed, Anthony was unable to resurface on his own, but thankfully his cousin and the emergency responders saved his life.

Unfortunately, when Anthony began his rehabilitation process, he was met with the harsh reality that the system does not accommodate the type of rehabilitation that SCI survivors need to recover. To properly recover from a spinal cord injury, an individual generally needs anywhere from 3 to 6 months of intensive rehab at a dedicated facility, and Anthony’s insurance only covered 20 days. Unfortunately, this is the standard — not the exception — regardless of the quality of insurance one carries.

The Purcells consider themselves lucky because they had enough savings to support Anthony’s further rehabilitation. However, many families and SCI survivors are not that lucky, and simply have to live with the “life sentence” they are handed by insurance companies and the medical industry at large. 

Micki and Anthony refused to give up and accept this. Through their work at Walking With Anthony, they hope to help others who do not want to give up, either.

Walking With Anthony’s mission is to provide those in the SCI community with access to therapies that help people get stronger, live healthier, and even get the opportunity to walk again. Rehabilitation for individuals with spinal cord injuries is a long, expensive, and arduous process. Walking With Anthony provides the resources people need to succeed in their recovery journey.

Real recovery, now

One thing that makes Walking With Anthony stand out is that it is focused on recovery, rather than finding a new cure or treatment for SCI. 

“There are already proven therapies and solutions to help people with spinal cord injuries — they just aren’t available to the average person,” asserts Micki Purcell. “The cost of getting just one person out of a wheelchair can be hundreds of thousands of dollars — and insurance doesn’t cover it. That’s not right, and we want to change it. And until that does change, we want to help people any way we can.”

Walking With Anthony provides SCI survivors with the support they need to continue their rehabilitation process in several forms. Perhaps the most obvious form is their grant program, which SCI survivors can apply to through the Walking With Anthony website. 

The grant program allows people to apply for direct and immediate financial assistance for resources like rehab, caregiving, special equipment, and emergency funds — all when they are in their time of most desperate need. However, Walking With Anthony’s support for those with SCI does not stop with providing survivors and families with financial support and resources — they also provide valuable guidance, mentorship, and mental health resources. 

The Purcells found that, even though Anthony had the financial support he needed to go through the rehabilitation process, he still faced the feelings of depression and hopelessness common to survivors of spinal cord injuries. Thus, in addition to financial grants, Walking With Anthony provides community support to those in the SCI community to help them navigate the incomparable emotional anguish that comes from living with a spinal cord injury. 

“I have met hundreds of my brothers and sisters in the SCI community,” says Anthony. “Not only to help them, but also to remind them that it is possible to keep moving forward with SCI. I hope my foundation and I can provide a sense of assurance and purpose to those suffering from spinal cord injuries.”

How to support Walking With Anthony

For those wondering how they can help Walking With Anthony continue its mission of serving the SCI community, the most obvious way is to donate. Donations go straight into improving the lives of those with spinal cord injuries by helping them access expensive but life-altering therapies that have helped numerous SCI survivors live stronger, healthier, and happier lives.  These contributions also go toward initiatives that help increase public awareness for the spinal cord injury community, which will hopefully lead to improvements in access and affordability for these treatments.

Although the support that Walking With Anthony provides to current SCI patients is extraordinary already, their commitment to making these already-existent, effective treatments more available for everyone who needs them is awe-inspiring. The Purcells hope to inspire those in the SCI community to continue to be strong and persevere through the challenges, as Anthony is living proof that recovery is possible.