Nathan didn’t ‘break’ his back or his neck.

Nathan was 16 years old and a talented basketball player. Already over six feet tall, he’d been selected for a New Zealand under-18 tournament team and his future was looking bright.

It was late in the afternoon and his high school team was finishing their training session. His Mum, Denise, was the team coach. Playing a post-training game Nathan was thinking about his upcoming trip to Australia with his teammates.

As he reached up to block a ball, he winced. He felt a burning sensation in his left shoulder. Perhaps he’d pulled a muscle? Ten minutes later Nathan couldn’t move at all.

Nathan had had an unpredictable, and very rare, spinal infarct (or infarction). An internal bleed that deprived his spinal cord of oxygen between the C2 and T4 vertebrae. The doctors told Denise to fear the worst. They weren’t sure he’d survive the night.

Now at 27 years of age and a whopping 6’5’’ (he was told he’d stop growing, but…), tetraplegia changed his plans but has not held him back.

While there are a few tetraplegic medical doctors, like Australia’s Dinesh Palipana, the NZ and Australian Medical School requirements were changed in 2013. They now rule out anyone who doesn’t have at least one fully functioning arm – like Nathan.

So, he turned to a Biomedicine and submitted his Doctoral thesis late last year. Not the medical doctor he dreamed of becoming but soon to be a doctor, nonetheless.

When Nathan learnt we were bringing Get a Grip to New Zealand, he knew he had to take part.

Living in Wellington made participating in the study challenging. But he was determined. So, at the end of January, Nathan, Denise, and service dog, Lyric climbed into Nathan’s van, and they drove to Auckland for a six-week stay.