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Your support makes all the difference.A teen – who was left paralysed from the waist-down after a diving accident three years ago – has shocked his family, friends and teachers by rising from his wheelchair to stride across the stage at his high school graduation.
After completely shattering his spinal cord when he dove head-first into a breaking wave in Ocean City, Maryland, Parker Haller, now 18, was told he had less than a five per cent chance of ever walking again.
But that didn’t stop the senior from proving doctors wrong, last week, as he glided across the stage – with only a cane for assistance – to accept his diploma to a deafening reaction from staff and students at Hylton High School in Dale City, Virginia.
After the accident, at 15, Parker was forced to take a year off from school to recover and, when he returned, his classmates never saw him without his wheelchair.
Parker told MyFoxDC.com: “It was overwhelming and exciting at the same time.
“I was trying not to over-think it because I didn’t want to fall down and ruin the whole moment. I was just focusing on walking across the stage.”
Watch the priceless reaction from the stadium:
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