Peter, the nation’s No. 1 wheelchair basketball recruit, has signed to play for two-time defending national champion Alabama. The teen is also a patient at Shriners Hospitals for Children — Chicago, where he received care through the spinal cord injury rehabilitation program. He’s been profiled in the Houston Chronicle and on E:60 on ESPN2.
Peter and Aaron receive care through the spinal cord injury rehabilitation program.
Peter, now 18, discovered the game of wheelchair basketball as part of recreational therapy during his stay at the Chicago Shriners Hospital when he was 10. He came to the Chicago hospital for rehabilitation after being in a motor vehicle crash that claimed the lives of his parents and left Peter and his younger brother, Aaron, with spinal cord injuries. Aaron also plays wheelchair basketball. Shriners Hospitals for Children opened the country’s first pediatric spinal cord injury rehabilitation program in 1980 at the health care system’s hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Similar programs were started a few years later at the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Chicago, Illinois, and Sacramento, California. Our health care system continues to be recognized worldwide as a leader in pediatric spinal cord injury rehabilitation and management, and is the only multihospital health care system in the United States with spinal cord injury rehabilitation and management programs designed specifically for children and teenagers.
Spinal Cord Injury Services
Comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services, directed by physicians specializing in pediatric spinal cord injury, may include:
- Critical and intensive care
- Orthopaedic, plastic and reconstructive surgery and neurosurgery
- Physical, occupational, recreational and speech therapy
- Psychosocial guidance and assistance, including counseling and support services
- Exercise-based wellness and fitness programs
- Experiential programs to encourage confidence and independent living skills
- Urological consultations and surgery
