Reeve purchased a 12-year-old American thoroughbred horse named Eastern Express, nicknamed "Buck", while filming Village of the Damned. He trained with Buck in 1994 and planned to do Training Level events in 1995 and move up to Preliminary in 1996. Though Reeve had originally signed up to compete at an event in Vermont, his coach invited him to go to the Commonwealth Dressage and Combined Training Association finals at the Commonwealth Park equestrian center in Culpeper, Virginia. Reeve finished in fourth place out of 27 in the dressage, before walking his cross-country course. He was concerned about jumps 16 and 17 but paid little attention to the third jump, which was a routine one-metre-tall (3.3 ft) fence shaped like the letter "W".[162]
On May 27, 1995, Reeve's horse made a refusal. Witnesses said the horse began the third fence jump and suddenly stopped. Reeve fell forward off the horse, holding on to the reins. His hands became tangled in them, and the bridle and bit were pulled off the horse.[note 2] He landed head first on the far side of the fence, shattering his first and second vertebrae. The resulting cervical spinal injury paralyzed him from the neck down and halted his breathing. Paramedics arrived three minutes later and immediately took measures to get air into his lungs. He was taken first to the local hospital, before being flown by helicopter to the University of Virginia Medical Center.[164] He had no recollection of the accident.[165]
Hospitalization
[edit]After five days in which Reeve was heavily medicated and delirious, he regained full consciousness. His doctor explained to him his first and second cervical vertebrae had been destroyed and his spinal cord damaged.[166] He was paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe without a ventilator.
Reeve's first thoughts when informed about the seriousness of his injury was he had ruined his life, would be a burden on his family, and it might be best to "slip away". He mouthed to his wife Dana, "Maybe we should let me go." She tearfully replied, "I will support whatever you want to do, because this is your life and your decision. But I want you to know that I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you. And I love you."[167] In what she would later describe as a "sales ploy", she also told him that if he still wanted to die in two years they could reconsider the question.[168]
After this conversation, and visits from his children in which he saw how much they needed him, Reeve consented to lifesaving surgery and treatment for pneumonia.[169] He never considered euthanasia as an option again.[167][170]
Reeve went through inner anguish in the ICU, particularly when he was alone during the night. His upcoming operation to stabilize his spine in June 1995 "was frightening to contemplate. ... I already knew that I had only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the surgery. ... Then, at an especially bleak moment, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in a Russian accent. He announced that he was my proctologist, and that he had to examine me immediately." It was Williams, reprising his character from the film Nine Months. "For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay."[171][note 3] In addition to visits from friends and family, Reeve received over 400,000 letters from all over the world, which gave him great comfort during his recovery.[175][note 4]
John A. Jane performed surgery to repair Reeve's neck vertebrae. He put wires underneath both laminae and used bone from Reeve's hip to fit between the C1 and C2 vertebrae. He inserted a titanium pin and fused the wires with the vertebrae, then drilled holes in Reeve's skull and fitted the wires through to secure the skull to the spinal column.[176] To access the cord, the surgeon had to cut a tendon on the right side of Reeve's neck, which became shorter and less flexible as a result, causing his head to tilt slightly to the right.[177]
Rehabilitation
[edit]After a month in the hospital, Reeve spent six months at the Kessler Rehabilitation Center in West Orange, New Jersey, to continue with his recovery and learn skills such as operating his sip-and-puff electric wheelchair by blowing air through a straw. In his autobiography Still Me, he described initially not wanting to face the reality of his disability. Getting used to sitting strapped into a wheelchair or taking a shower was initially terrifying. Reeve developed a deep fondness for many of the staff at Kessler, and through conversations with the other patients gradually started to see himself as being part of the disabled community.[178][note 5]
For the first few months after the accident, Reeve relied on a ventilator, which was connected to his neck through a tracheostomy tube, for every breath. With therapy and practice, he developed the ability to breathe on his own for up to 90 minutes at a time.[180]
At home, Reeve exercised for up to four or five hours a day, using specialized exercise machines to stimulate his muscles and prevent muscle atrophy and osteoporosis.[181] He believed that intense physical therapy could regenerate the nervous system, and also wanted his body to be strong enough to support itself if a cure for paralysis were found.
Beginning in 2000, he started to regain the ability to make small movements with his fingers and other parts of his body. By 2002, he could feel the prick of a needle and sense hot and cold temperatures on 65% of his body.[182][183] He regularly exercised in a swimming pool and could push off with his legs from the side of a pool and make a snow angel movement with his arms. He also had a sense of proprioception, which is critical for movement control.[184] Initially, Reeve was given an A grade on the ASIA Impairment Scale, indicating no motor or sensory function. In 2002, his grade was changed to C, indicating some degree of muscle movement and sensation. Reeve's doctors were surprised by his improvements, which they attributed to his intensive exercise regimen. The degree of his recovery was reported in scientific journals.[185]
In February 2003, Reeve became the third patient in the United States to undergo an experimental procedure in which electrodes were implanted in his diaphragm to help him breathe without a ventilator.[186] Previously, he could force air into his lungs using his neck muscles, which required a lot of effort. With a diaphragm pacing device, he was able to breathe normally through his nose, regaining his sense of smell and normal speech.[187][188] At first, the device allowed him to breathe for 15 minutes an hour, but over time this increased up to 18 hours a day.[189] In November 2003, Reeve appeared in public without a ventilator for the first time since his accident.[190] In 2008, the device was approved by the FDA under a Humanitarian Device Exemption, and received premarket approval in 2023.[191]
Life with paralysis
[edit]In December 1995, Reeve moved back to his home in Bedford, New York. By two years after the accident, Reeve said he was "glad to be alive, not out of obligation to others, but because life was worth living."[192] He continued to require round-the-clock care for the rest of his life, with a rotating team of 10 nurses and five aides working in his home.[193][note 6]
In the aftermath of the accident, Reeve went through intense grief. He gradually resolved to make the best of his new life, with a busy schedule of activism, film work, writing and promoting his books, public speaking, and parenting. In 1998, he said in an interview:
In another interview, Reeve said he drew on the self-discipline he had gained in his early years in the theater:
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