The Quadriplegic Ironman

The Quadriplegic Ironman

Ricky was born with the worst kind of cerebral palsy. Doctors said he would be a vegetable for life and recommended that his parents institutionalize him. But his brothers, Rob and Russell, were defiant: “We’re going to bring our little brother home and treat him like a regular kid.”

Ricky’s mom, Judy, refused to surrender to her baby’s disability. She spent endless hours doing physical therapy with Ricky, painstakingly taught him the alphabet, and then got state laws changed so that he could attend public school. A special computer allowed him to communicate using head motions to select letters and spell out words.

When he was fifteen years old, Ricky asked his dad if he could compete in a race. His dad agreed, and he pushed his son in a jerry-rigged chair that now resides in the Massachusetts Sports Hall of Fame. After the race, Ricky tapped out a message: “Today I felt like I wasn’t handicapped.” That started an odyssey that has taken him around the world, averaging fifty races a year, including thirty-four Boston Marathons and a nearly four-thousand-mile bike ride across America.

But it was at the Ironman triathlon in Kona, Hawaii, that a worldwide television audience witnessed Ricky’s miracle. Only elite athletes are allowed to compete in this ultratriathlon of swimming, biking, and running. Ricky and his dad are the only tandem team ever allowed to compete. They came in close to last, but they were the big story in 1997.

The world watched fifty-nine-year-old retired air force colonel Dick Hoyt carry his mute, quadriplegic twenty-seven-year-old son into the Pacific. He swam 2.5 miles in open water, pulling Ricky in a rubber raft attached to his wet suit. After that, he completed the grueling 112-mile bicycle course with Ricky strapped to a seat on his handlebars. Finally, he ran the 26.2-mile marathon while pushing Ricky in a race chair. There have been few moments in sports as inspiring as when Team Hoyt crossed the finish line, Ricky’s face grinning with unrestrained joy.

Today Rick Hoyt is a graduate of Boston University. With the help of his caregivers, he lives in an apartment where he develops computers to aid disabled people. Not long ago, he tapped out on his computer to a Boston Globe reporter, “When I am running, my disabilities disappear.” The reporter said to his dad, “But don’t you do the running for your son?” Dick replied, “No, Rick runs the races. I just loan him my arms and legs.” He added, “There’s nothing in the world that we can’t do together.”

The story of Team Hoyt should encourage us all. God has called us to run the race of life. Sometimes it seems beyond our abilities. But we have a heavenly Father who says, “If you do the running, I will give you my arms and legs. There’s nothing that we can’t do together.” So keep on running, inspired by this truth:

Where our strength runs out, God’s strength begins.

Those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31