PORT ANGELES — “Patience has become my virtue — but it’s not the easiest thing.”
Wry words of wisdom, especially from a 19-year-old man. Insight comes early when you’re paralyzed below your shoulders.
Alex Ralston of Port Angeles was stricken March 28, 2004, in a head-first fall at the Port Angeles Boat Haven.
Now he’s focused — with forced patience — on graduating from Peninsula College, entering the University of Washington and embarking on a teaching career.
Meanwhile, Hailey Fox, 19, of Sequim, another casualty of a spinal injury, is answering the same career calling at the University of Victoria.
Fox is able to walk — but never again to run — after breaking two vertebrae in a 35-foot plunge from a rope swing into a ravine at Sieberts Creek on Aug. 14, 2003.
As for recovering, she’s Ralston’s equal in matter-of-factness:
“I didn’t really have a choice,” she said last week.
“Either you came back or you gave up.”
The young people were guest speakers at the Puget Sound Blood Center’s Life Luncheon in Seattle early this month. They spoke to 800 people gathered in the Westin Hotel to mark National Volunteer Donor Month.
