In June of 1979, as a member of the Tucson Police Department, Thumper suffered a serious neck injury apprehending a drug-crazed and violent homicide suspect. Although there were symptoms of distress, the severity and magnitude of the harm to his cervical spine and spinal cord went undetected for several months.
The gifted hands of a surgeon repaired his bruised spinal cord and crushed vertebra. Within hours of surgery life returned to his extremities. In a matter of days he was walking the halls of the 800 wing of the Tucson Medical Center. Medical professionals were calling his recovery a miracle. He was calling it a gift and he still does.
But when the physical therapy sessions ended, although ambulatory, he remained a pathetic picture of his former athletic self. At 6'2" his hand was still a curled up claw, his weight had declined from 202 pounds to 130, and he faced a medical retirement from the police department. What now? The rehabilitation process that would help him regain his health was lacking. The "black hole" in healthcare was revealed. He discovered that once physical therapy methods had been exhausted people with chronic health problems had nowhere to go. This was unacceptable. As an officer, he had participated in the department's education program as a psychology major at the University of Arizona. It was then natural for him to turn to the U of A to search for a degree or at least courses that would teach him how to continue the healing the surgery and physical therapy began. No such program existed so he convinced one department to create an internship where he could begin to author a program for those with chronic ailments and/or physical issues associated with aging. It was an intensive program that demanded he use his own body to develop the training methods we still use today.
This life changing event brought him into a new career and ultimately to his own business here in GreenValley. Thumper joined with his wife, Victoria and friend, Karen to form Mind to Motion. We have provided personal training and life coaching to the Green Valley community since 1996, acquiring credentials that include Clinical Exercise and Pilates mat and equipment. We have also completed extensive professional development programs for cardiac, stroke, and pulmonary rehabilitation. To our knowledge, nearly thirty years after his life-changing event, there is still no facility that provides the type of clinical exercise, pre and post habilitation, and life enhancement programs that our company does and the need for what we do at Mind to Motion only grows as people take greater responsibility for their own health care and like Thumper, refuse to accept their chronic health conditions.
From left to right: Karen, Thumper, and Victoria
“There’s no one here,” Thumper said, creating an echo. “Where are the people you talked of?” “Oh, they’re gone,” Angela smiled. “I did all that I could for them.” “But you said they had problems. Serious problems. Where are the people that should be here helping them? This is a great place to be working with these people. Why is it empty?” “There is no one to work with them. It’s that ‘dark hole’ that exists after they have used up their allotted physical therapy sessions. I can only help them so much with words. They need more. They need someone to give them hope by making them want to leave their wheelchairs. The guts to make them want to walk again. To stand with them, share their fears and desires. To be stronger than the pain, more caring than a prescription. Give them time, quality time. They need to learn to laugh at their past, smile at today, and beg for tomorrow…with a purpose. Do you know anyone like that, Thumper?”
