Be Not Afraid: Ben Peyton's Story

Ben Peyton's story began on Sunday, December 22, 1996. On that fateful day, while playing hockey for the Edina Junior Gold team, he collided with a player from the opposing team and lay motionless on the ice. His parents, John and Nancy, observed the horrific collision and experienced every parent's worst nightmare. Doctors offered little hope that the seventeen-year old would ever regain use of his limbs. After two emergency surgeries to repair crushed vertebrae and fuse his spine, Ben was paralyzed from the neck down. His story is more than a simple tragedy. His was a study in courage, fortitude, and inspiration. From the day of his accident, BE NOT AFRAID proceeds to describe in detail Ben's struggles with life-threatening pneumonia, a collapsed lung, and his extraordinary will to regain some—any—use of his limbs. It concludes on March 26—the day he leaves the Sister Kenney Institute.