During WWII Ray Werner was hit by sniper fire and paralyzed at Guadalcanal. Treated at the now closed Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, CA, he can be seen here playing pool. Although paralyzed, he used sports as therapy and became a wheelchair basketball player. Werner also helped disabled veterans through his professional life, installing hand controls in automobiles for disabled drivers. Early participation in sports was key to the rehabilitation of soldiers during and after the war.

At 19, athlete Amy Purdy had both legs amputated below the knee due to septic shock from Meningococcal Meningitis. A longtime snowboarder, she returned to the slopes using prosthetics winning bronze at the 2014 Sochi Paralympic Games in snowboard cross, and two medals in 2018 at the Pyeongchang Games. She also competed on Dancing with the Stars AND The Amazing Race along with co-founding Adaptive Action Sports, a nonprofit that engages athletes with disabilities in action sports.

At 29, Buddy Elias lost one of his legs below the knee due to a rare disease. He continued to pursue snowboarding by crafting a homemade adaptive board that combined a pool noodle, a crutch, and material from a local hardware store. After complications, he now faces life as a double-amputee but still pulls off skateboard tricks and grinds curbs with his wheelchair. Buddy is just one of the athletes who was featured in Everyone Plays, a 2017 exhibit at the National Museum of American History.

Chris Douglas, paralyzed at 19 after a spinal cord surgery related to his spina bifida, donated his hockey sled—a custom-built structure molded to his body and held together with duct tape—and his hockey sticks that are modified to both control the sled and push the puck across the ice. In 2015, Douglas used these items as the starting forward for Team USA’s gold medal win in the International Paralympic Committee Ice Sled Hockey World Championships held at the Harborcenter in Buffalo, NY.

Mike Schultz, an extreme sports athlete, lost his left leg above the knee in a snowmobile accident in 2008. He designed the moto knee and versa foot prosthetic to compete in extreme sports, and in 2013 won gold in adaptive motocross at the X Games at the then named Staples Center. Switching sports in 2018 to compete in the Paralympics, he won gold and silver in snowboarding. His company, BioDapt Inc., produces high-impact prosthetics for adaptive sports participants including his competitors.