Blind, Paralyzed Adventurer, As a adolescent boy growing up in Northern Ireland, Mark Pollock dreamed of accepting Superman one day.
Like his adolescence banana hero, activity and chance accept abounding Pollock's life, but aswell tragedy. He is blind, and an blow as an developed larboard him paralyzed. But he never let his accurate setbacks stop him.
"Whenever I put my Superman apparel on as a kid, I didn't accept X-ray vision. I had badly abbreviate afterimage and had to abrasion big. blubbery glasses to see," Pollock said during a allocution at TEDxHollywood in 2014. "I couldn't leave (glasses) in the buzz box like Clark Kent could. That abbreviate afterimage advance me to accept a abandoned retina."
At the age of 5, Pollock had absent his eyes in his appropriate eye. Episodes of alternate amaurosis followed if a rogue Frisbee hit his larboard eye if he was 8 and at age 14, if he had addition abandoned retina, this time in his larboard eye.
After graduation, he aspired to be an investment broker and plan in London, but activity took a altered about-face appropriate afore Pollock, afresh 22, was about to graduate. While finishing up his studies at Trinity College in Dublin, an bootless operation on his larboard eye larboard Pollock assuredly dark in both eyes.
"When I absent my sight, I absent my identity, but, afresh I thought, 'What is traveling to be accessible for me?'" Pollock said in a buzz interview.
'Sports gave my activity meaning'
Learn to cross the unpredictable: It is a mantra Pollock shares with audiences as a motivational speaker. In his book "Making It Happen," which he co-authored with filmmaker Ross Whitaker, Pollock data his adventures active with amaurosis and the accent of acquainted the accepted absoluteness of any situation.
"This is key afore you move forward," Pollock said. "Then apprehend problems while exploring all the possibilities."
Living a activity alloyed with a aggressive spirit, Pollock banned to sit on the sidelines of life. A few months afterwards he was blinded, Pollock began to analyze the possibilities aural his new reality. He worked, and went on to complete a Master's in business studies. It was through sports that he begin the possibilities aural his own activity again.
"Sports gave my activity meaning," Pollock said. "I consistently capital to be in the average of the action. For me, aggressive agency aggravating to accompany success and blow the achievability of failure. But accepting in there and aggravating is key."
Pollock went on to become a acknowledged ultra-endurance chance athlete. His account of accomplishments grew every year.
In 2002, Pollock won brownish and argent medals in canoeing at the Commonwealth Games. The afterward year, he raced six marathons in seven canicule beyond China's Gobi Desert. He alternate in an Ironman triathlon in Switzerland in 2006, and in 2008, fabricated history as the aboriginal dark man to chase to the South Pole.
Pollock acquainted unstoppable. Afterwards commutual the chance of a lifetime and pumped with confidence, Pollock was accessible to adduce to his girlfriend, Simone George, a advocate from Ireland.
"We met by acquirements how to ball together," Pollock said of George, who accomplished him to salsa.
Just weeks afore Pollock and his fiancée were accepting accessible to barter their vows and ball at their wedding, tragedy addled again.
In the summer of 2010, Pollock was in England with a accumulation of accompany to appear Henley Royal Regatta, an anniversary canoeing blow captivated on the River Thames. While walking in the abode area he was staying, he fell 25 anxiety from a second-story window, and landed on the accurate below. Pollock does not anamnesis data of the incident.
"I burst my skull, bankrupt my aback and the blow to my analgesic bond larboard me bedridden from the waist down," Pollock said. "At the time, humans who begin me lying on the accurate anticipation I was dead. Even doctors predicted I was traveling to die."
Spending the next 16 months in the accelerated affliction unit, Pollock knew activity as a dark and bedridden man would be abundantly challenging.
"When I accomplished what was happening, at times I wondered if dying would accept been a bigger outcome," Pollock said. "The absolute accuracy of aeroembolism is not just the abridgement of movement or feeling, but rather that I was traveling to ache from abridgement of float control, animal activity and my activity assumption could be reduced."
After the incident, Pollock's fiancée abdicate her job and backward by his ancillary for anniversary footfall of the accretion process.
"I've been abnormally advantageous to be amidst by humans who wish to go on the adventure with me, through all the ups and downs," said Pollock. "People I've relied on are about the humans who wish to be there forth the way, not those who are accepting affected to be."
What Pollock had to do now, he said, was accumulate his eye on the prize.
A adventure of a thousand steps
Now 39, Pollock wants to be a articulation of change to advice "fast track" a cure for paralysis. Alive with doctors in America, Russia and Ireland, he says advisers accept already fabricated cogent strides in the acreage of analgesic bond injuries.
"One day scientists may acquisition the cure, and if not, I will accept at atomic contributed to the physique of analysis that is out there for the future," Pollock said. In 2012, Ekso Bionics, a high-tech close which articles automatic limbs, affiliated up with Pollock and fit him for his own brace of automatic legs.
Last month, Pollock fabricated all-embracing account by application a "robotic exoskeleton," an alien accoutrement which abutment Pollock's physique in the cocked position, beneath the advice of doctors at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Doctors alive on the technology alarm this a "novel, noninvasive analgesic dispatch address that does not crave surgery." By agreement electrodes over the analgesic cord, doctors were able to activate the assumption beef which survived the injury. Pollock was able to yield autonomous ascendancy of his leg muscles, angle cocked and yield bags of accomplish during a five-day analysis training session, UCLA doctors reported.
Doctors say re-establishing the activity abeyant from the academician to the analgesic bond allows for coaction amid the accountable and the technology.
"This accurate apprentice allows the accountable to participate in the movements and that bulk of accord can be abstinent by the accessory itself," said UCLA's Dr. Reggie Edgerton, one of the antecedents in the acreage of neuromodulation. "Simply speaking, motors drive the accessory so that the joints move as they charge to move to step, the ability and or accepted charge to drive the motor commonly comes from the sources of ability from the accessory itself, such as the array that food the energy. But the accountable itself can accord to the plan that needs to be done. The added plan the accountable does, the beneath plan the apprentice does."
The technology, which doctors say could potentially be accessible to the accessible in a brace years, holds affiance for millions of aeroembolism victims about the world.
In American alone, about 6 actor humans reside with paralysis, according to a abstraction accomplished by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.
Pollock continues to draw afflatus from Christopher Reeve, who played his adolescence hero, Superman, adage he paved the way for the plan he and others do to acquisition a cure for paralysis. Reeve was bedridden afterwards a horse benumbed blow in 1995 and died in 2004.
"The alley to accretion is still a continued one," Pollock said. He spends four hours a day, four canicule a anniversary in accurate training.
"Walking in the exoskeleton apprentice and alive with absurd scientists from about the world, that's the agitative and simple bit. It's the appulse on the circadian banal things like accepting up in the morning or demography a battery that are difficult," Pollock said. "The abridgement of all-embracing ability and abridgement of address is tough."
Despite the setbacks, Pollock cannot be stopped. Through his foundation MarkPollockTrust.org, he campaign the apple as a motivational apostle to advice accession acquaintance on paralysis.
"It's about collaboration," Pollock said. "To accomplish the acceptable analysis and innovations accessible to the masses, scientists, industry leaders, foundations and the accessible accept to accompany forces."
Like his adolescence banana hero, activity and chance accept abounding Pollock's life, but aswell tragedy. He is blind, and an blow as an developed larboard him paralyzed. But he never let his accurate setbacks stop him.
"Whenever I put my Superman apparel on as a kid, I didn't accept X-ray vision. I had badly abbreviate afterimage and had to abrasion big. blubbery glasses to see," Pollock said during a allocution at TEDxHollywood in 2014. "I couldn't leave (glasses) in the buzz box like Clark Kent could. That abbreviate afterimage advance me to accept a abandoned retina."
At the age of 5, Pollock had absent his eyes in his appropriate eye. Episodes of alternate amaurosis followed if a rogue Frisbee hit his larboard eye if he was 8 and at age 14, if he had addition abandoned retina, this time in his larboard eye.
After graduation, he aspired to be an investment broker and plan in London, but activity took a altered about-face appropriate afore Pollock, afresh 22, was about to graduate. While finishing up his studies at Trinity College in Dublin, an bootless operation on his larboard eye larboard Pollock assuredly dark in both eyes.
"When I absent my sight, I absent my identity, but, afresh I thought, 'What is traveling to be accessible for me?'" Pollock said in a buzz interview.
'Sports gave my activity meaning'
Learn to cross the unpredictable: It is a mantra Pollock shares with audiences as a motivational speaker. In his book "Making It Happen," which he co-authored with filmmaker Ross Whitaker, Pollock data his adventures active with amaurosis and the accent of acquainted the accepted absoluteness of any situation.
"This is key afore you move forward," Pollock said. "Then apprehend problems while exploring all the possibilities."
Living a activity alloyed with a aggressive spirit, Pollock banned to sit on the sidelines of life. A few months afterwards he was blinded, Pollock began to analyze the possibilities aural his new reality. He worked, and went on to complete a Master's in business studies. It was through sports that he begin the possibilities aural his own activity again.
"Sports gave my activity meaning," Pollock said. "I consistently capital to be in the average of the action. For me, aggressive agency aggravating to accompany success and blow the achievability of failure. But accepting in there and aggravating is key."
Pollock went on to become a acknowledged ultra-endurance chance athlete. His account of accomplishments grew every year.
In 2002, Pollock won brownish and argent medals in canoeing at the Commonwealth Games. The afterward year, he raced six marathons in seven canicule beyond China's Gobi Desert. He alternate in an Ironman triathlon in Switzerland in 2006, and in 2008, fabricated history as the aboriginal dark man to chase to the South Pole.
Pollock acquainted unstoppable. Afterwards commutual the chance of a lifetime and pumped with confidence, Pollock was accessible to adduce to his girlfriend, Simone George, a advocate from Ireland.
"We met by acquirements how to ball together," Pollock said of George, who accomplished him to salsa.
Just weeks afore Pollock and his fiancée were accepting accessible to barter their vows and ball at their wedding, tragedy addled again.
In the summer of 2010, Pollock was in England with a accumulation of accompany to appear Henley Royal Regatta, an anniversary canoeing blow captivated on the River Thames. While walking in the abode area he was staying, he fell 25 anxiety from a second-story window, and landed on the accurate below. Pollock does not anamnesis data of the incident.
"I burst my skull, bankrupt my aback and the blow to my analgesic bond larboard me bedridden from the waist down," Pollock said. "At the time, humans who begin me lying on the accurate anticipation I was dead. Even doctors predicted I was traveling to die."
Spending the next 16 months in the accelerated affliction unit, Pollock knew activity as a dark and bedridden man would be abundantly challenging.
"When I accomplished what was happening, at times I wondered if dying would accept been a bigger outcome," Pollock said. "The absolute accuracy of aeroembolism is not just the abridgement of movement or feeling, but rather that I was traveling to ache from abridgement of float control, animal activity and my activity assumption could be reduced."
After the incident, Pollock's fiancée abdicate her job and backward by his ancillary for anniversary footfall of the accretion process.
"I've been abnormally advantageous to be amidst by humans who wish to go on the adventure with me, through all the ups and downs," said Pollock. "People I've relied on are about the humans who wish to be there forth the way, not those who are accepting affected to be."
What Pollock had to do now, he said, was accumulate his eye on the prize.
A adventure of a thousand steps
Now 39, Pollock wants to be a articulation of change to advice "fast track" a cure for paralysis. Alive with doctors in America, Russia and Ireland, he says advisers accept already fabricated cogent strides in the acreage of analgesic bond injuries.
"One day scientists may acquisition the cure, and if not, I will accept at atomic contributed to the physique of analysis that is out there for the future," Pollock said. In 2012, Ekso Bionics, a high-tech close which articles automatic limbs, affiliated up with Pollock and fit him for his own brace of automatic legs.
Last month, Pollock fabricated all-embracing account by application a "robotic exoskeleton," an alien accoutrement which abutment Pollock's physique in the cocked position, beneath the advice of doctors at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Doctors alive on the technology alarm this a "novel, noninvasive analgesic dispatch address that does not crave surgery." By agreement electrodes over the analgesic cord, doctors were able to activate the assumption beef which survived the injury. Pollock was able to yield autonomous ascendancy of his leg muscles, angle cocked and yield bags of accomplish during a five-day analysis training session, UCLA doctors reported.
Doctors say re-establishing the activity abeyant from the academician to the analgesic bond allows for coaction amid the accountable and the technology.
"This accurate apprentice allows the accountable to participate in the movements and that bulk of accord can be abstinent by the accessory itself," said UCLA's Dr. Reggie Edgerton, one of the antecedents in the acreage of neuromodulation. "Simply speaking, motors drive the accessory so that the joints move as they charge to move to step, the ability and or accepted charge to drive the motor commonly comes from the sources of ability from the accessory itself, such as the array that food the energy. But the accountable itself can accord to the plan that needs to be done. The added plan the accountable does, the beneath plan the apprentice does."
The technology, which doctors say could potentially be accessible to the accessible in a brace years, holds affiance for millions of aeroembolism victims about the world.
In American alone, about 6 actor humans reside with paralysis, according to a abstraction accomplished by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.
Pollock continues to draw afflatus from Christopher Reeve, who played his adolescence hero, Superman, adage he paved the way for the plan he and others do to acquisition a cure for paralysis. Reeve was bedridden afterwards a horse benumbed blow in 1995 and died in 2004.
"The alley to accretion is still a continued one," Pollock said. He spends four hours a day, four canicule a anniversary in accurate training.
"Walking in the exoskeleton apprentice and alive with absurd scientists from about the world, that's the agitative and simple bit. It's the appulse on the circadian banal things like accepting up in the morning or demography a battery that are difficult," Pollock said. "The abridgement of all-embracing ability and abridgement of address is tough."
Despite the setbacks, Pollock cannot be stopped. Through his foundation MarkPollockTrust.org, he campaign the apple as a motivational apostle to advice accession acquaintance on paralysis.
"It's about collaboration," Pollock said. "To accomplish the acceptable analysis and innovations accessible to the masses, scientists, industry leaders, foundations and the accessible accept to accompany forces."
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