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When Megan Blunk says she spent the year after a devastating 2008 accident "in the dark," the description has a double meaning.

Feature Adaptive Sports 01

The Washington state native was 18 and a month out of high school when the driver of a motorcycle on which she was the passenger crashed, resulting in injuries that paralyzed her from the waist down. Blunk had battled depression before the accident. It asserted itself with a vengeance as she envisioned her active life as a multi-sport athlete coming to an end.

"I had to face everything that I no longer could do. It felt like I was mourning the death of my old life, yet I had to keep on living," she says. "It was incredibly hard. I spent a year in the dark, not knowing if there was anything out there for me."

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  1. Pioneers of Disability Sport. https://www.bristolstreetversa.com/news/pioneers-of-disability-sport/. Accessed March 15, 2019.
  2. De Luigi AJ, ed. Adaptive Sports Medicine: A Clinical Guide. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG; 2018.
  3. Harris Interactive. Sports and Employment Among Americans With Disabilities. https://www.disabledsportsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Sports-and-Employment-Among-People-With-Disabilities-2.pdf. Accessed March 15, 2019.
  4. Bragaru M, Dekker R, Geertzen JHB, et al. Amputees and sports: a systematic review. Sports Med. 2011;41(9):721-740.

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