by Tiff -

SCI Superstar: Roman Reed

There is no doubt Roman Reed is one of the greatest patient advocates for spinal cord injury research currently alive. Destined to play in the NFL, when his life took the paralysis U-turn, he did what any true superstar would do – he went on to dedicate his life to a finding a cure for spinal cord injuries, and he’s still going strong.

Roman’s now near 20 year journey of living with a spinal cord injury has resulted in millions of dollars in research and funding money to find a cure for spinal cord injuries; the hard work he’s put towards this goal has been astounding. Read on to learn the back story on renowned spinal cord injury patient advocate, Roman Reed. Read this entry

by Tiff -

SCI Superstar: Sabrina Cohen

Sabrina Cohen, a C3-5 quad, saw her whole life change on Halloween in 1992 after she left a party with friends. All it took was being a passenger in a car (that decided to suddenly join in on a drag race) for her life to be completely altered.

The car hit a tree, with Sabrina breaking her C3 through C5 vertebrae. But even though she was only 14, she started honing her advocacy skills from the get-go.

In this video you can see one of the first speeches she gave after injury, where she speaks to fellow high school students on the power they have to say ‘no’ to bad decisions.

Despite always holding out hope she’ll get better one day, Sabrina wasn’t about to let her life go on without her. After high school, she went on to graduate with a degree in Communications from the University of Miami and received a masters in Copywriting from the Miami Ad School.

She also started her own ad agency SabCo Productions in 2003. But despite all of her academic and professional success, something was still missing from Sabrina’s life – advocacy. Read this entry