The Roanoke Times

File 1999

Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Gary Ricketts' room at Friendship Health and Rehab Center features photos of soccer legend Pele, himself and a religious poster. Ricketts moved to Friendship in December 2004. He often visits other residents. "He just draws people in like a magnet with his wonderful personality," nurse Martha Heck said.

Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Ricketts uses his computer, which has a large roller ball. Straps on his hands stabilize his wrists and let him underline parts of his textbooks with a pencil. He has taken eight online classes at Liberty University, one at time, since 2005, and finished his final course a few months ago.

Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Gary Ricketts (left) chats Monday with nursing assistant Lily Franco (center) and nurse Martha Heck at Friendship Health and Rehab Center in Roanoke. Ricketts, 32, a former soccer player, lives there after a car accident paralyzed him in 1999.

Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Ricketts rolls down the hallway at Friendship. "We're all his family," one physical therapist assistant said.

Gary Ricketts was an athlete, hustling down a Roanoke soccer field. Then came the car accident in 1999 that left him a quadriplegic, moving from one Roanoke medical facility to another.

The accident not only put him in a wheelchair but also halted his college studies at the beginning of his final year.

It would be understandable if he were bitter.

And yet he is steadfast in his faith and in his upbeat approach to life. Three years ago he returned to college via online courses.

This morning, he will graduate from Liberty University, achieving a life goal at the school where he used to score other goals.

Many friends will attend the commencement and/or the party that will be held for him this afternoon at Friendship Health and Rehab Center in Roanoke, where he lives.

Friends who typed his term papers and homework assignments. Friends who write letters for him. The professor from Vinton who bought Ricketts' textbooks. The staff members who befriended him at the various facilities where he has lived.

They will be there not because of what they have done for Ricketts, but because of what he has done for them.

"He's so got a heart of love for other people and their problems that he does not concern himself with his own, and that's an inspiration," said Carol Collett-White, who got to know Ricketts when she was a secretary at Burrell Nursing Center. "When he first was in Roanoke he had a few friends, but not many. Now he has scores and scores of friends locally.

"People are drawn to him. ... Nurses would come to his room if they wanted cheering up."

So how could he not invite them to commencement and to his party?

"I could do [without] all of this ... but that would be selfish," Ricketts said. "Because people want to have a part in what has been accomplished -- give people a chance to cheer."

Soccer standout

Ricketts, 32, grew up in a poor family in Jamaica. The soccer coach at Bluefield College in Virginia saw him play in Jamaica and offered him a scholarship. He played two seasons for Bluefield before earning a scholarship at Liberty, where he was an all-conference forward in 1997 and '98.

Ricketts also played three summers in Roanoke -- for the now-defunct Roanoke RiverDawgs minor league team in 1996 and for the now-defunct Roanoke Wrath minor league team in 1997 and '99.

With his college athletic eligibility exhausted but still on scholarship, Ricketts returned to Liberty in the fall of 1999 to finish work on his business management degree.

One weekend in September 1999, Ricketts rode to Atlanta with three friends so one of them could pick up a car. He rode back in a 1994 Chevrolet Camaro driven by his then-roommate, Steve Mitchell.

According to the North Carolina Highway Patrol, it was shortly after midnight on North Carolina 87 in Reidsville when Mitchell changed lanes to pass a slower car in front of him. Mitchell's car, which police estimated was traveling 80 mph, ran off the road, struck the bank of a ditch and overturned twice. Mitchell, who fractured an arm and a leg, was convicted of reckless driving.

The crash broke Ricketts' neck and crushed his spinal cord. He has no feeling from the chest down. He also needed a tracheotomy and still breathes through the trachea tube.

But it didn't crush his spirit.

"It's a choice, to choose not to be negative and look at the positive side of life," Ricketts said. "That's what I've chosen. I have to, to keep it going, because depression really weighs you down. Depression is not in my vocabulary."

After stays at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and Lewis-Gale Medical Center, he moved in December 1999 into the Roanoke home of his then-girlfriend, Gayle Goodwin, and her mother, Joyce Goodwin. His medical insurance from Liberty had run out, so the Goodwins paid Ricketts' at-home medical expenses for as long as they could.

He left their home in April 2000 for Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, the first stop of several hospitals he had to deal with over the next four years. That summer he transferred to Carilion's Burrell Nursing Center in Roanoke. When Burrell closed in 2002, he moved to Roanoke Memorial Rehabilitation Center. But that is not a long-term nursing facility, so he moved to Friendship in December 2004.

Carilion pays for his care at Friendship, just as it has ever since he left the Goodwins. His visa expired in 2000, so he isn't eligible for government aid.

'She was my hands'

Larry Lilley, a Liberty University business administration professor who lives in Vinton, was visiting a patient at Carilion's rehab center four years ago when he bumped into Ricketts -- one of his former students -- in a hallway. Ricketts told him he wanted to finish work on his degree.

Lilley became Ricketts' liaison with Liberty and its distance learning program. Ricketts received a Jerry Falwell Ministries scholarship worth $10,000 that covered tuition and fees. Lilley paid for Ricketts' textbooks.

Ricketts took eight online courses -- one at a time -- beginning in 2005. He finished his final course a few months ago. Lilley checked in with him every week.

Ricketts uses a voice-activated computer that one of his former Bluefield professors bought for him. But the computer is limited in understanding him when he speaks into the headset.

He has some feeling in his shoulders and upper arms but can't move his hands or fingers. He can bend his arms but can't extend them. But Ricketts wears straps on his hands that stabilize his wrists and allow him to use his hands in certain ways.

He can push down on the large roller ball on his computer's special mouse. He was able to insert a pencil in his straps and, using both hands to hold it, underline sentences in his textbooks.

But it takes some time for him to turn a page, which has taught him patience.

"The [distance learning] program is challenging for ordinary students, but in his position, it was extremely challenging," Lilley said.

Ricketts answered homework questions and wrote papers by talking into an old tape recorder. Friends would later come to his room, play the tapes and type up his schoolwork, pausing to ask him questions if they didn't understand something.

Emilce Walters, a Friendship physical therapist assistant, and Friendship volunteer Bethany Cook would type for him. Other typists included friends he had met years earlier, such as Dana Heaps, who met him when she worked as a Burrell speech pathologist; and Boones Mill resident Amanda Davis, who had met him when she was visiting a patient at Carilion's rehab center.

"I'd type for hours ... and we'd talk about anything from religion to politics to different cultures," Walters said, "He always has a smile on his face. It amazes me that he still has such a good attitude when he's at a nursing home. I'm always inspired when I talk to him."

"She was my hands," Ricketts said of Walters.

The Rev. Debbie Hutton, associate pastor of Christian Life International Church in Salem, also came by to type for him, and so did some members of her church. Ricketts was baptized there, although he no longer attends its services because of transportation issues.

"He's probably one of the most positive people I've ever met," Hutton said.

For years, Ricketts has been working on a book about his life and faith. He talks into the tape recorder, and Cook types it up for him.

'Never negative'

Although Ricketts went to church in Jamaica and attended Liberty, he didn't become a born-again Christian until the year after his accident.

"I had to turn to something," he said. "Some people turn to alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, drugs. But I turn to Jesus Christ. It's given me great peace.

"I'm at a place spiritually that no one can shake, and that has given me the strength to function physically."

A Friendship nursing assistant wakes Ricketts at 6 each morning so he can be repositioned in bed. Then he prays and reads the Bible for two hours. His walls feature not only a photo of him playing for the Roanoke Wrath and a photo of soccer legend Pele but also computer printouts of Bible passages.

One of them is Romans 12:12: "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

Ricketts spends a lot of time each day roaming Friendship in his motorized wheelchair. He visits residents -- most of whom are elderly -- and staff to spread cheer and share his faith. When they ask how he is doing, he always replies, "I'm blessed."

"I've had other spinal-cord-injury residents [who are] young, and they've been bitter. They just hate the world. But he's never negative," said Martha Heck, a Friendship nurse. "He just draws people in like a magnet with his wonderful personality."

In the afternoon, Ricketts often goes to a grassy area across from Friendship's parking lot to sit by the trees and listen to the birds. He will read a textbook or a religious book or listen to his portable CD player. He considers it his office, his getaway.

"It doesn't seem like much, but it is for me," he said.

Many friends

There are always visitors for Ricketts to greet.

David Chapman of Blacksburg was so inspired by a 2002 Roanoke Times article on Ricketts that he decided to bring a troubled teenager he was mentoring to Carilion's rehab center to meet Ricketts.

"He was able to inspire us. He could've been depressed. He could've been upset ... but Gary's attitude is incredible," said Chapman, who now visits by himself and brings home-cooked meals. "I'm shocked that somebody who was so active and had a wonderful ability to do what he did physically and who is now not able to do that is not set back."

Ricketts rarely leaves the Friendship grounds, but he will ride in a friend's van to commencement today. He isn't sure what he will do with his degree.

"I would like to be a productive part of the Roanoke area," Ricketts said. "I try not to pay too much [attention to] my limitations, but it's there. So my question is, 'What's out there? What's possible?' "

Today, either at commencement or at the Friendship party or both, the many people whose lives he has touched will gather to congratulate him.

His former girlfriend and her mother.

The Bluefield professor who bought him his computer.

The Liberty professor who bought him the textbooks.

The pastor from Salem. The friend from Blacksburg.

The many staff members he met at Friendship, Burrell or Carilion's rehab center.

"We're all his family," said Walters, the Friendship physical therapist assistant. "I'm so proud of him."