Since a diving accident in 2004 when he became paralyzed below his shoulders, he’s been spreading hope and inspiration to everyone he meets.
Prior to the accident, he would never have seen himself as a public speaker, but now he wants to take his messages of hope and inspiration across the country. Right now, he focuses on middle school students in Olathe and its surrounding areas.
Part of what makes his message so strong is his positive attitude. Even immediately after the accident, he continued to crack jokes with the friends around him and even the Lifeline helicopter team. As he put it, “nobody wants to see a grouch,” and more importantly, “I wanted my friends and family to know it was still me.”
Since his accident, he’s been determined to keep his life as similar as possible to before the accident. Of course to him, every day is an occasion! And, probably what he’s most proud of, he rocks a pair of shorts.
Mark is passionate about spreading knowledge and information about people with disabilities. As mentioned before, he’s been speaking to middle school students for a long time about his accident and quadriplegics like himself. Sometimes former students will approach him and tell him how impactful his message was, even years after listening to him speak.
Mark is unique because he lives at home by himself. While he does have caretakers and volunteers stop by throughout the day, he spends a lot of his day by himself. But this leads to Mark’s biggest challenge; he runs through his volunteers quickly. While he has a large network of people volunteering to help him, even a couple of more people who spend one night a month with him will immensely reduce the workload for his current volunteers.
While Mark has tried a lot of gizmos and gadgets over the years, the thing he said helped him the most was his bike. He has a special bike which uses electric pulses to motivate his leg muscles and get a workout. That’s kept his leg muscles strong and improved his breathing and lung capacity.
Thank you Mark for doing what you’re doing, and we hope for your continued success in getting your message spread across to others. If you want to follow his journey, follow him on his website http://makeasplashinc.com/.