Reunion brings hope
Lions Clubs aid quadriplegic
January 15, 2001, Pasadena Star News
By Diana L. Roemer
Staff Writer
Victor Wright rests in the bedroom he has occupied for 23 years at his parents' home in Altadena.
A tube juts from his throat. Without it, he would die. He dreams of a self-sufficient future but, for a quadriplegic, that hope is just a glimmer.
"There's times when I feel I should try to do the best I can do," the 39-year-old Wright said, "and there are times when I just want to be healthy and live day to day and just get well."
But it's unlikely Wright will ever get well. He was crippled by an injury he suffered as a sophomore during a John Muir High School football game. At first there were fund-raisers, car washes and tutors. But as years went by, most friends who helped drifted away.
And now Wright's mother, Dorothy, his caretaker since the accident, is ill. A pacemaker, implanted in November, stimulates her heart.
Wright wants to make money to help himself, to help his mother and to relieve the burden on relatives. All of his eight siblings have cared for him over the years. His older brother, Dexter, even changed careers to become a nurse just to help him.
Then one day, the glimmer of hope Wright needed appeared.
Former high school classmate David Rutherford, spearheading John Muir High School's class of 1979's 20-year reunion committee, phoned.
"Nobody knew how he was," Rutherford, now of Diamond Bar, said. Rutherford said some thought Victor was dead.
But Wright came to the reunion. Rutherford made a plea that night to classmates to donate toward Wright's needs, but very little was collected.
Rutherford, a public affairs representative for the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar and a member of the City of Industry Lions Club, decided to use his networking skills to help.
Last November, his Lions Club joined forces with the Pasadena Host Lions Club to raise money. The two clubs have issued a challenge to other service organizations, and anyone who wants to help, to match their giving. For starters, the Pasadena Host Lions have paid through March for Wright's daily food from Meals on Wheels.
But Wright needs more, they say. He's helpless in his rented hospital bed, where he faces the same wall where images from his past -- footballs and helmets -- hang. Even though those mementos represent all that went wrong in his life, Wright still wants to see them.
"I wanted to be a football player," Wright said, haltingly, rasping the words out, aided by a respirator.
It was John Muir High School's second game of the year, a Friday night in September 1976, when Wright tackled an opponent who had intercepted a pass, he said. He didn't square off to make the tackle because his knee hurt. He went down and couldn't get up.
Wright settled legal issues regarding his injury with the school district and has been aided by the cash from that, family assistance, and some insurance, since then. But money is dwindling fast, he said.
Wright has three wishes. He wants to be trained as a financial analyst, he wants an around-the-clock nurse, and he wants to write an autobiography, he said.
-- Diana Roemer can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 4454, or by e-mail at diana.roemer@sgvn.com.
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