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First Time Back on the
Tennis Courts
Basile Reaches Further Ahead
Two years after a beach
accident left him paralyzed, Josh Basile rehabilitates and works
on several fronts to help others with spinal cord injuries.
By Nikki Kabalkin/The
Almanac
July 5, 2006
"It will be two years ago this
August that Josh Basile’s life took an irreversible turn on the
shores of Bethany Beach, Del. Until that day, Basile, a graduate
of the Bullis School and a star tennis player on Skidmore
College’s varsity tennis team, was an active and engaged young
man who had not yet grappled with major adversity.
However, on Aug. 1, 2004, while bodysurfing at Bethany Beach,
Basile was swept up and slammed down on the ocean floor. His
fifth cervical vertebra was shattered and he was left paralyzed
from the shoulders down. In the hospital, Basile was told that
he would never get off the ventilator that was keeping him
alive.
After two years of intense physical therapy and working to come
to terms with his new situation, Basile has regained a wide
range of mobility in his arms, and some mobility in his legs. He
has emerged determined to make a difference in the lives of
others with spinal cord injuries and to prevent further
accidents of this kind.
LAST YEAR Basile launched a foundation Determined2Heal in an
effort to achieve these goals.
The purpose of the organization is fourfold: to ease the
transition families of newly injured spinal cord patients make
from normal life to recovery; to support spinal cord related
research and rehabilitative organizations; to promote beach
safety so that future beach injuries may be prevented; and to
maintain a Web site of information about spinal cord injury,
research, and rehabilitation. In just one year, Basile has
succeeded even beyond his own expectations.
Upon entering Basile’s home in River Falls, the current
headquarters of Determined2Heal, the energy of the organization
is palpable. Surrounded by leftover pizza and loud rock music,
more than a dozen high school students, college students and
college graduates work diligently, spurred on by the constant
presence and vigor of Basile himself. He moves from group to
group barking out orders and giving advice.
"It’s crazy around here. I’ve never had to be in charge of so
many people at one time," said Basile.
Students from Bullis, St. Andrew’s, Whitman and Connecticut
College work on one of several Determined2Heal teams—
fundraising, neuroscience, documentary, travel, or the Web site.
"We have a bunch of different teams — we’re just rocking it
out," Basile said.
Basile is urging his interns to completely redesign the Web site
by providing spinal cord patients with the means to research
their own injuries and ameliorative techniques based on their
own degree of spinal cord injury.
Penn Scott, a rising Bullis School sophomore, heads the Web
team. Visitors enter the severity of their spinal injury ranging
from a level C-1 to C-8, and will be provided with appropriate
information, rehabilitative exercises and activities that
tailored to each visitor’s needs.
Basile is also hoping to post a range of activities that would
enable, as he says, "a person in a wheel-chair to have a good
time." He instructs his interns to call museums, sports arenas
and aquariums in hopes of receiving free tickets for people with
disabilities.
Huddled in the corner, the fundraising team organizes events
such as a car wash at Bullis. The documentary team — St.
Andrew’s students Gie Gie Hart, Kelly Tillotson and Hannah Davis
— provides people with spinal cord injuries with rehabilitative
techniques, by taking pictures of various exercises people with
paraplegic paralysis engage in when performing their own
physical therapy. These visual representations will be displayed
on Determined2Heal’s website.
The foundation’s interns have a range of reasons for helping
Determined2Heal reach its goals.
"I’ve been friends with Josh for years," said David Dimock, a
Walt Whitman High School ‘05 graduate and rising sophomore at
Connecticut College. "I’m going to be a neuroscience major [so]
this is really up my alley." Basile also helped Dimock obtain a
research internship at Johns Hopkins University’s Kennedy
Kreiger Institute.
Kim Segal, a rising senior at Bullis, worked with Dimock on the
neuroscience team.
"He came and talked to our school last year," Segal said. "I
really wanted to do what I could to support it."
FOLLOWING THE LAUNCH of Determined2Heal, Basile has become a
spokesperson for spinal cord injuries and beach safety awareness
throughout the country. One of his upcoming speaking engagements
is at Project Wipeout in Laguna Beach, Calif. in mid-July.
Project Wipeout is a nonprofit organization created in 1979
after five young people with severe spinal cord injuries were
admitted to Hoag’s Intensive Care Unit in Newport Beach in one
summer. The foundation now works to save lives and prevent
injuries at beaches throughout the country by developing and
disseminating beach safety information.
Project Wipeout asked Basile to speak to 400 lifeguards during
his trip to California in an attempt to educate them about
spinal cord injuries and beach safety.
It is when talking about the issue of beach safety that Basile
becomes truly passionate. His efforts to convince authorities in
beach areas to post warning signs have fallen on deaf ears.
"It’s easier for them not to listen. They claim that these
injuries are just freak accidents and that there is no proof
that they are responsible because there are laws that prohibit
hospitals from releasing the statistics that argue otherwise,"
Basile said. "These injuries can be prevented, but the bottom
line is that they’re not being prevented, and that needs to
change."
In addition to Basile’s work for Determined2Heal, his speaking
engagements and his commitment to his physical therapy, Basile
has secured an internship with U.S. Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) this
summer. Cardin, a candidate for U.S. Senate, is a supporter of
stem cell research. "That’s why I love the guy," said Basile.
For it is stem cell research itself that has shown the most
promise in treating spinal cord injuries, Basile said. Basile
has software that will enable him to type simply by speaking
into a wireless earpiece, a device that will also function as a
telephone at the press of a button.
ALTHOUGH BASILE no longer plays tennis at the varsity level, he
refuses to surrender on the courts, just as he has refused to
permit his injury to overcome him in life. After many months of
physical therapy at Johns Hopkins University’s Kennedy Kreiger
Institute, Josh has recently achieved a long sought-after goal:
the ability to hit a tennis ball over the net. Sitting on the
River Falls tennis courts in his wheelchair, grip assist gloves
on his hands, his old tennis teacher Paul Bress treats him as he
would treat any of his other players.
"Come on Josh," Bress calls out encouragingly.
But Basile needs no encouragement. The determination he needs
comes from within. Amidst many onlookers, Basile acts as if he
is the only one on the court. At this point it is just him and
the ball.
"I got this one. Last one Joshua, last one," he says to himself
as the ball approaches.
He moves his arm ever so slightly and hits it over the net. The
court erupts in cheers and Bress yells out "Money!" – his
characteristic expression.
"I think I’ll end on that note," Basile says.
— Alex Scofield also reported for this article. "
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