Finding Life In A Wheelchair After Being Shot

Once a week, in the basement auditorium of the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C., a group of men gather to discuss the various struggles and triumphs of life in a wheelchair.

The program, called the Urban Re-Entry Group, is a gathering place for young black men who have been paralyzed by gun violence. Here, conversations flow freely about guns and violence, sex and politics, and life and death among the half dozen or so regular attendees.

“You know how I look at it? Somebody die in D.C. every day, somebody born in D.C. every day,” said Corie Davis, one of the most senior members of the group, at a recent meeting.

Davis was shot in the neck during a street fight 20 years ago. At 40 years old, he has now spent as much of his life in a motorized wheelchair as outside of it.

“If you know how to take it one day at a time and live life, then you wouldn’t let it affect you … If [you’re going to] wake up every morning and be miserable, then you’re going to make your body break down, and that’s something you don’t want,” Davis said in an interview.

In this room every Tuesday afternoon, conversations are frank and unfiltered.

At various points, Davis and others debate the merits of religion, semi-automatic rifles and how they make their way to the streets (most gathered seem to agree they’re planted in neighborhoods by a corrupt government), and which 1990s rapper made the most influential album of the era (Tupac and Biggie both have passionate defenders around the table).

Despite the unstructured flow of discussion within the dull brown walls of their dimly lit meeting place, this is where the men make some of the most meaningful progress in adjusting to life in a chair.

“The Urban Re-Entry Group got started as a result of having a whole new group of patients that we hadn’t been, quite frankly, used to dealing with here in rehab and hospitals in general,” said Samuel Gordon, a clinical psychologist at MedStar who helped launch the group some 25 years ago.

“These were young, inner-city, primarily African-American males,” Gordon explained, “who, because of their involvement in street activities or just living in the inner city… sustained pretty damaging and devastating physical injuries.”

At 30 years old, Deonte Gay is one of the youngest attendees of the group. Since being paralyzed as a random bystander near an attempted robbery on a liquor store 10 years ago, Gay said these meetings have taught him the kind of practical life lessons you can only learn from someone with similar physical limitations.

“Corie [Davis] was the first one who taught me how to put my shoes on,” Gay said. “I could not put my shoes on to save my life. Even the therapists, everyone tried [to teach me].”

“Then I went down to the group, and I just said it. And he was like ‘That’s all you need help with?”... And he broke it down in a way that was so simple,” Gay said.

In the more than two decades since Gordon helped establish the group, patients have cycled in and out of the program.

Some patients defy their initial prognoses and regain significant use of their lower bodies. Others simply move away. Several, when faced with the prospect of living the rest of their lives in a chair, have taken their own lives or intentionally neglected their own health to die.

“Getting a spinal cord injury or a serious brain injury puts you in a sort of catch-22, where you’re both still alive, but not fully alive. Somewhat in prison. You’re not in a typical prison, but you’re kind of imprisoned by your disability,” Gordon said.

But despite the obvious difficulties of losing most of your mobility in the prime of your life, Gordon says that for many in the group, ending up in a wheelchair marked a positive turning point.

“Being in the wheelchair, even though it’s imprisoning in one way, it still gives them a reason to stay away from the life that they were living before,” Gordon said.

That perspective rings true for 30-year-old Gay, who called his shooting “the best thing that happened to me.”

“My life changed for the better,” Gay said of being paralyzed. I’d take these 10 years over a lot in my life … These [have] been the best 10 years.”

Reporting by Alana Wise and Tyrone Turner

Photography by Tyrone Turner

Story by Alana Wise

Site Design by Emily Alfin Johnson and Tyrone Turner

Editing by Emily Alfin Johnson, Zuri Berry, Jeffrey Katz, Kelsey Proud and A.C. Valdez

With help from Chris Chester, Lisa Dunn, Xiuzhu Lin, James Reichard and Virendra Silva

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Each subject’s portrait is stitched together from multiple photos using Photoshop to create a photo illustration.

This story is produced in partnership with Guns & America.

Guns & America is a public media reporting project on the role of guns in American life.