“Adaptive Sports made a difference for me” ~ PFC Michael Romulus

FALLS CHURCH, Va.- Private First-Class Michael Romulus’ dreams of life as a Soldier ended shortly after they began. In a terrible accident during basic training on September 30, 2023, he said his whole life flashed before him.” I fell 40 feet off an obstacle course and broke my neck, my breastbone, and fractured my right knee,” said the 20-year-old who was paralyzed from the neck down.

Romulus, the first person in his family to serve in the military, said he had to put the excitement of being a wheeled vehicle mechanic in the Army out of his mind and focus on the bigger picture. “I was deemed ineligible to serve after my injury. I’ve been focused on learning to walk, write, and care for myself all over again.” His first and only job in the Army now is to get better, and the Army Recovery Care Program was there to help him.

The oldest of six children, he spent the first three weeks inpatient at a hospital in Missouri. “My mom is a nurse, and she came right away; sometimes it’s a blessing and a curse having your mom, who is a nurse, in the hospital with you,” he laughed. By mid-October, he was in an intensive spinal cord injury program at the Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta. He learned about the Fort Moore Soldier Recovery Unit there when his Army recruiter visited him.

“The SRU has been able to get me back into somewhat good health where I can function. When I first arrived, they helped me learn how to walk. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Physical therapy taught me how to focus on the muscles in my feet. Occupational therapy taught me how to focus on muscles in my hands with many fine motor and dexterity skills,” said Romulus, who had to learn all the basics like brushing his teeth and feeding himself to regain part of his everyday life.

The Brooklyn native says he knew he was in the right place. “I was surrounded by mentors and my brothers and sisters in arms who helped me recover. I’ve been here since January. Amazing doctors and therapists helped me unlock parts of myself I’ve never known, allowed me to do things I’ve never done before, and found my love of new things, such as adaptive sports.”

His therapy included adaptive sports, which he says made all the difference. “Here, I love archery, seated shot put, and seated discus. I tried adaptive tennis and wheelchair basketball, and wow, those were hard, but it’s amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.”

He competed in the 2024 Endeavor Games and was hooked. “It was everybody helping each other. I competed with a woman who shot her arrow in archery with her mouth, which was inspiring. I took what I learned about discus and shotput and gave it my all. I won two gold medals in those events.”

Daily activities in the SRU boosted his confidence in adaptive sports and fine-tuned his abilities, and they enthralled him with paralympic-style sports. “When the regular Olympics came on, I didn’t even watch it because I was more interested in the Paralympics, where I see people like me doing what they never thought they could do again.”

Romulus will keep adaptive sports as part of his life, take these short-lived experiences in the military, and use them for the greater good. “When I med-board out of the Army, I will go back to school at Morehouse College and study engineering and receive a bioengineering bachelor’s degree. I plan to make spinal cord technology that will help others in need. Being someone with a spinal cord injury, I know how it feels, and I want to help lead the way. God has taken me to this place in my life to be the best version of myself and help others.”