AMAZING: Paralyzed Teenager Walks The Stage at His Graduation Just Nine Months After His Injury, A Hockey Accident That Left Him Paralyzed From Waist Down

A Massachusetts teenager walked his high school graduation stage this past Friday. That may sound simple, but this teen walked the stage after sustaining a hockey injury last September that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

A video posted to Twitter (shown below) shows Jake Thibeault, 18, getting up from his wheelchair with the help of two classmates. He then walks the Milton Academy graduation stage with a walker. He is met with lots of applause during the inspiring and unexpected moment.

The Patriot Ledger reported:

The teen had set the goal of walking his graduation stage months ago after suffering a pair of broken vertebrae and a “small brain bleed” during a hockey game, WCVB reported. Thibeault’s injury occurred on September 4 when he hit the boards head-first after a collision “with an opposing player.”

“The shift before my injury, I skated down the left side, cut to the middle, I scored, and then I don’t remember going on face off, and then I don’t remember much from there,” Thibeault told The Patriot Ledger.

“I’ve kind of been an underdog in hockey and in multiple things where I’ve had to go that extra mile,” he said.

“I’ve had to work a little extra harder. Those years of having to fight hard for what I want has helped me to now face the biggest challenge yet and, hopefully, I ever have to face.”

According to Breitbart:

He was taken to Umass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, MA, where rods and screws were loaded into his spine to steady it, and a conversation with a doctor threw a grim forecast on the future. Thibeault said he was informed that his chances of walking again were “low”, but the Fitchburg resident is a scrapper.

After leaving Memorial Medical Center, he went to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown, where he told the Patriot Ledger he forged lifelong friendships with the caring staff. Following his time at Spaulding, Thibeault “spent several months of outpatient rehabilitation at Journey Forward in Canton” with the intention of walking at graduation.

The boy’s father told WCVB, “It was a just an overwhelming feeling of being proud for Jake. (I was) never more honored to be his father.”

According to WVCB, Thibeault “was also one of several students to receive Milton Academy’s Head of School Award for demonstrating qualities such as self-sacrifice, community concern and leadership.”