Steve Daniel's Story
I was nineteen when I joined the army, fresh out of High School. For fourteen years I was privileged to serve my country as a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment, which was based in Petawawa. Prior to that, I had overseas tours in Bosnia, Croatia and Afghanistan.
Then my life took a dramatic change of course. On June 30th 2005, I was conducting a course in free-fall parachuting when I landed wrong and fractured my eleventh Thoracic vertebrae, which instantly paralyzed me from the waist down.
After months of rehabilitation and surgery to fuse my spine by having two rods inserted along the side of my spine, I was looking for an outlet for my energy. Prior to my accident, I had led a very active lifestyle. As part of the Canadian Military, I had to be fit and daily exercise was a way of life.
Fortunately for me, the Canadian Paralympic Foundation, in partnership with the Canadian Paralympic Committee, had initiated a new program called Soldier On. This fund is for the sole purpose of providing permanently disabled service men and women with adaptive sports equipment which can sometimes cost up to ten times more than regular sports equipment.
