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A Disastrous Injury Leads Him Into Activism
On July 3, 1999 , Mike Di Scipio's son's team won the 9- and 10-year-old Colonie Little League Championship. Di Scipio had managed the team with his best friend. After the game, everybody met at the Di Scipios to celebrate with a pool party. "It was a beautiful, hot day," remembers Di Scipio, who was working as a correction officer with the Albany County Sheriff's Department. "We got pizza and wings and everybody had a great time." Di Scipio was a 230-pound powerlifter, an active guy. That afternoon, he felt good, felt loose. At one point, he jumped up onto the rails of the poolside deck he had built. He dove from the deck into the pool. "I just misjudged how far out I was. Instead of getting to the deep end, I came down right at that point where the shallow and deep ends meet," he says. Di Scipio remembers the shot that ran through him when his head hit the bottom. "I had played running back in football, and I was hoping the pain was just a stinger." He remembers being pulled out of the pool. He had trouble breathing. People were yelling to call 911. Everyone was in shock. "When you're a macho guy and you do something stupid, you feel embarrassed," says Di Scipio. After that, things got foggy. Di Scipio spent 11 days in the intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center Hospital, then six weeks in recovery there. He had broken two vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Di Scipio also suffered a brain injury that has affected his memory. Wheelchair mastery Di Scipio was transferred to Helen Hayes Hospital, in West Haverstraw, Rockland County, to begin rehabilitation. One of the first things Di Scipio learned was to maneuver his power wheelchair with 'Sip-N-Puff' controls, a four-speed steering system that allowed him to propel and turn by blowing into and sucking on a small pipe. "I mastered that thing," says Di Scipio, who stayed at Helen Hayes for about six weeks. "By the time I left, I was showing other people how to use it." There were few bright spots in what was a period of fury and frustration. One, though, came at a crucial time. "The day I was leaving Helen Hayes, I was getting my last occupational therapy stretch," says Di Scipio. "The therapist tried to get me to roll my arm. I argued with her, told her I couldn't move anything. It was very upsetting. We got into a confrontation, then my wife got into it with me pretty good. She was screaming at me. All of a sudden, I flipped my arm. It gave me hope." Gradually, Di Scipio gained enough control in his right arm to have a joystick installed on his powerchair. Out of the fog Di Scipio began to control as well the pain of dealing with what had happened to him. "It took me three years to come out of a fog, to feel like myself again. You know, you were the rock of your family, you were the leader. Something like this really screws with your head."
With the encouragement of Paul Richter, of Albany, who, in the 1970s, had been paralyzed after being shot while on the job as a zone sergeant for the State Police, Di Scipio began to get involved with the local chapter of the Spinal Cord Society. Alongside the actor Christopher Reeve, Richter had begun to campaign for embryonic stem cell research as a member of the New York State Spinal Cord Injury Research Board. Talking to Richter, Di Scipio says, sparked his own interest in the possibilities of stem cell research to uncover cures for spinal cord injuries. "Paul and I have so much in common. He was with the State Police and I was with the county," says Di Scipio. "We're such close friends. He's like a mentor to me. And we really push each other." Speaking in public In November 2003, Di Scipio was invited to Rockefeller University, in New York City, to participate in a symposium. Sharing the stage with Reeve and two researchers, he spoke in public for the first time. A nervous Di Scipio told his story to the crowd of 300. "The feedback I got was that you could hear a pin drop. I had people come up to me afterwards crying," he says. "When you hear from an average, ordinary Joe who has to struggle every day, when you get the perspective of somebody like me, you get a different story." During the past year, Di Scipio has become a greater voice in the debate over the future of stem cell research. In March of this year, after the Times Union published an article about Di Scipio's advocacy for embryonic stem cell research, he met with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno to discuss the possibility of funding for the research in New York. In June, he spoke briefly after the state Assembly passed a bill that would encourage embryonic stem cell research in the state. (The corresponding Senate bill has not been voted on.)
Di Scipio is now preparing a mailer campaign. He has printed postcards with a picture of the billboard on the front and a plea for embryonic stem cell research on the back. He says he plans to go downtown and hand deliver a postcard to each senator. "I want them to know what I'm doing. I'm a guy in a wheelchair, and I want them to wake up and smell the coffee on this," he says. Meanwhile, he's already set his sights on his next goal. After Di Scipio delivers the postcards, he wants some time to speak to the assembled Senate on its own turf. He's confident it will happen. "They told me I couldn't get a billboard up, and I got the billboard up. They told me I couldn't get a meeting with Bruno. I got a meeting with Bruno. Now, I want 10 minutes to sit on the floor of the New York state Senate and tell the senators my story. That's all I want. Let them hear from me."
Mike Di Scipio | ||
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From Oct. 1 to Nov. 1, Di Scipio posted a billboard at the intersection of I-90 and I-787. The billboard showed Di Scipio with his two children, Ashley and Anthony. Across the top of the billboard, he wrote: "Please help me walk and play with my children."