Peter Brady has a message for all his former volleyball teammates, former Orchard Park High School classmates and everyone else who has sent get-well wishes to him in Erie County Medical Center.
"The injury hasn't changed me," the 19-year-old said from his hospital bed. "Tell them that I'm getting through it, that it hasn't paralyzed my sense of humor, and it hasn't paralyzed my positive attitude."
Moments later, to prove the point, Brady took a quick ride in a Hoyer Lift, a gizmo that helped lift him out of bed and into a new wheelchair.
"This is sweet, isn't it?" he asked his best friend, Chuck Mosey, with a grin on his face. "This is a great ride."
And once he got into the wheelchair, he asked, "How fast does it go?"
Brady was seriously injured on Memorial Day, May 28, when he dived into about four feet of water in a neighbor's pool. The impact fractured his C3 and C4 vertebrae and left him paralyzed, with some minor exceptions, from his shoulders down, family members say.
"We discovered that his spinal cord was bruised, not severed, and we are so grateful for this," according to his website, peterbradyhealingfund.com.
Brady has regained some use of his biceps muscles on both sides, leaving doctors and family members optimistic about how much progress he can make over the next six to nine months.
"My dreams are to move everything again and to get back to college and start my life as a financier," Brady said in a lengthy interview. "I don't want to set any goals that are unreachable. Just moving everything, that seems reachable. That's what I want to do."
Brady graduated from Orchard Park High School in June 2011, after earning All-Western New York first-team honors as a volleyball setter in his senior year.
He had just finished his freshman year at the University of Pittsburgh, where he's majoring in finance. Already enrolled in a summer calculus course, he was all set to work as a camp counselor for the Orchard Park Recreation Department, when the accident occurred Memorial Day afternoon.
"I remember everything from the accident," he said. "I didn't pass out or black out. I dove into the pool, something I had done maybe 50 times before, and I misjudged it. As soon as I hit the bottom of the pool, my body went limp."
Unable to move his arms or legs, he floated to the water's surface but knew he had suffered a serious neck injury and needed help.
"I remember being facedown in the pool for maybe eight seconds, no more than 10," he recalled.
Close friends immediately sensed something was wrong and quickly pulled him out of the water.
"I said, 'Call 911. Call my dad and call my mom,'" he said.
Emergency crews arrived at the scene, immobilized his neck and took him to center field at the baseball diamond in Yates Park, where a Mercy Flight helicopter picked him up for transport to ECMC.
What was he thinking then?
"It was like a paralysis," he said. "Everything had stopped. I was in a daze. I wasn't terrified. It was like, 'What have I done to myself?' I knew I had hurt a lot of people, because I knew I hurt myself so bad."
The walls of Brady's hospital room are plastered with signs and get-well cards from his friends at Orchard Park High School, in the volleyball community and in his music world. He had also found time to play drums in the blues band 4in Tune, which represented Western New York at a Memphis blues festival last year.
All those well-wishers will get to express their love for Brady and his family at a fundraiser from 1 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Wings Flights of Hope pavilion on California Road in Orchard Park. Donations are $25.
The accident created a huge challenge for Brady's family, including his parents, Jane and Jim.
"It's a test of patience for all of us," his father said. "When the accident first occurred, we all felt deflated. It was sickening to see our son so traumatized by the injury.
"We were wondering how we were going to help him and cope with this ourselves," Jim Brady added. "We basically discovered that the great love we had for one another gave us the strength to help Pete persevere and be courageous ... "
Jim Brady also cited family members' goal for their son.
"What we really want to see is him having the quality of life he deserves and for him to be an autonomous adult," he said.
Peter Brady, the athlete, talked about the daily grind of physical therapy as he slowly regains more functioning.
"It's just like volleyball practice," he said. "But the progress is much slower."
