“I keep on going for it.” That could be the mantra of Ryan Wallace’s life.
A Lifetime of Influence
“I keep on going for it.” That could be the mantra of Ryan Wallace’s life.
The 36-year-old has a B.A. in Graphic Design, and creates logos for businesses. For nine years, he worked in the demanding area of customer service in the mortgage and banking fields, then for a major medical transportation broker in central New Jersey. Ryan is now studying to be a personal trainer. And he travels the U.S.!
It would be an impressive list of accomplishments for anyone. But it’s especially impressive when you consider Ryan’s journey.
In 1985, five-year-old Ryan was severely injured by a hit-and-run driver. His skull fractured, the child lay in a coma for two weeks at a Newark hospital. The diagnosis: traumatic brain injury with an additional facial fracture. After Ryan emerged from the coma, he came to Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside to start the long, arduous climb back.
“It was as though he was reborn and had to start all over again,” says Ryan’s mother, Judy. “He had to relearn everything up to age five – walking, speaking, and using his extremities.”
At Children’s, Ryan’s days were filled with the most advanced physical, occupational and speech therapy. “He was very focused on recovery,” Judy recalls. She appreciated how welcoming Children’s was to the family. “Going there was like going to his home. I’d get into bed with him, hold him and read to him. After all, he was still a baby. There was no pushback from the hospital.”
After eight months of remarkable progress, Ryan returned home in a wheelchair. Soon, the determined child was using a walker. To this day, Ryan follows a fitness program of his own design, using all the techniques he learned during his recovery. For a time, Ryan was placed in Special Ed at school. But by his junior year of high school, he was partly mainstreamed.
Ryan is proud that his profound injury never held him back in school. After graduating from a two-year college, he transferred to Monmouth University, where he played in the pep band and earned his B.A. “I graduated every school on time!” Today, Ryan doesn’t let either his limp or mild cognitive issues limit him.. “I don’t like to feel sorry for myself nor do I want other people to. I look at my weaknesses as strengths. They are things that I can improve upon. I keep going for it!”