Quadriplegia: Danny Murphy's Story Video

Quadriplegia usually involves paralysis in all four limbs, though not always. Learn about how to cope with Quadriplegia in this video.

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Be positive
Take care of your diet
Exercise

About this Author

Danny Murphy was paralyzed from a broken neck 34 years ago.

DANNY MURPHY: My name is Danny Murphy. I was injured 34 years ago in a diving injury. I broke my neck and paralyzed four of my limbs. I was perfectly healthy at the time. I was pretty active physically. I was playing golf, all that kind of stuff, and then this was just something that--an accident. It kind of comes as shock and you just try to--you really just try to get through it each moment. You really don't have any other choice, so you're just kind of fighting to stay alive and to make it through the next day. I spent most of the time in physical therapy, working out with weights and practicing different transfers and that kind of thing and turning around. And then occupational therapy was, although a little bit different, you'll learn how to actually dress and do what they call activities of daily living. It was a waiting game to see what return you could get, because it really wasn't any more physical stuff being done to my injury site. It had all been repaired as best possible. Then it was more therapy and trying to adjust to what had happened. You can't go south because these people are holding you up. Ironically, one of the guys that was with me when I was injured became a movie writer and director. And I went to one of his movies and he asked me what I thought of it, and I gave him a hard time that he didn't have anybody in a wheelchair in the movie, so it kind of hit home for him and I got bitten by the bug. And when he filmed me in his next movie which is called "Kingpin," I was just really lucky that I found a great group here in the NoHo Arts Center. The general desire to attack life, I supposed, is what you have first of all. Then there are a number of things that I can talk about in terms of taking care of your body nutritionally and things like that. But exercising and--I've done a lot of research on--just on how on nutrition and things like that as well to make sure that I'm taking care of my body because that's something that the public in general doesn't do a great job off. Michael J. Fox, he has a great quote where he said if he could have Jesus, Allah, all the major spiritual people that exist in a room and they could take his Parkinson's away, he would say: Take a hike. Because he just feels he has been so blessed by his disability that it's actually--it teaches--it has taught him so much. Once you kind of shift your thinking and your thoughts in that way of taking the high road, you're going to be--you're going to find amazing things about yourself.