Never Give Up

Local Santa Fe man, involved in car accident that left him paralyzed, never gives up hope and has learned to live his life in a wheelchair.

"You push for brake and pull the lever down for gas," 24-year-old Daniel Lury heard from the driving instructor, as he was trying hard toconcentrate.

Lury had to concentrate on many daily activities, activities that once came with out any though at all. Learning to drive by pushing and pulling a lever is just one of the daily activities that Lury has had to re-learn after a car accident changed his life forever. Almost all of his usual daily activities now required extra work from Lury.

by: Kyla Proctor

Lury feeding his new puppy, Chaco, a treat.

Push-pull driving
Lury pushed his wheelchair to the driver side door of his 2009 Mercedes Benz C 63 AMG. With his hand, he took his right leg and lifted it to the floor of his car. He then took his left leg and placed it inside and lifted his body up from his chair and transferred into the driver’s seat. With the vehicle still in park, he pulled down the lever located underneath the steering wheel and a loud “vroom” came from the exhaust pipes. He pushed the lever forward to make sure he knew which way it functions as a brake and which way functions as the accelerator.

by: Kyla Proctor

Hand controls allow a person who cannot move their legs to drive a car.

by: Kyla Proctor

Daniel Lury getting ready to drive out of his garage in his Mercedes Benz.

The Accident
In 2005, Lury was on his way to work at the Department of Public Safety in Santa Fe, N.M. It was 8 a.m. and Lury was driving his 1994 Honda Accord. When Lury began to make his left turn onto Cerrillos Road, a woman ran the red light and smashed into Lury's car almost crushing him completely. Lury was air-lifted to the emergency room at University of New Mexico Hospital where he underwent 10 hours of heart surgery. Lury’s aorta, the main artery to his heart, was severed and was repaired through a difficult and unpromising surgery.

"I was sitting in the waiting room when the surgeon came out to tell me my son could suffer from paralysis after this surgery,” Lurys mother Luanna said. “I told him, I don't care what you do! Just save my son’s life.”

Lury was left paralyzed from the waist down.

After a month at the Intensive Care Unit at UNMH, Lury had a long, intense journey ahead of him. He spent hours and months in hospitals, rehabilitation units and extreme physical therapy. Lury relied on family, friends, nurses and doctors to help him through this period of his life.

"I would have done anything I could to help him," Lury’s best friend, Mike Lopez, said.

He was not even able to sit up on his own. Physical therapists helped him work what muscles he could move and re-learn everything he learned when he was a small child.

"It was so hard at first,” Luanna Lury said. “My only son’s life was completely changed in a matter of seconds. It was every parent’s worst nightmare.”

Extreme Strength
Eventually, Lury gained his upper body strength back. Although it was challenging, and at times depressing, Lury slowly started accepting his new life as a paraplegic. Lury and his family and friends pushed through the obstacles to overcome this disheartening accident.

During the beginning of my rehab program, I mostly worked on transferring from my chair to the bed or couch and also just living in a wheelchair,” Lury said. It will be four years that I have been paralyzed on May 26 of this year.”

When Lury went home for the first time after months in the hospital, he came up with his own motto, “Never Give Up.” He said he still follows this motto.

Lury has accepted his new life and is currently doing very well. He recently purchased his own home and a labradoodle puppy, Chaco, (part Labrador and part poodle). He travels and is living his life and not letting anything stop him.

Now is the Time
In the near future, Lury wants to go back to school. He is seriously considering ITT Technical Institute located in Albuquerque, N.M. ITT Tech offers programs in a variety of technical areas, including electronics and communications engineering technology, visual communications and criminal justice. Lury would like to pursue studies in the criminal justice program.

Lury wants to learn the fundamentals of the criminal justice system and basic criminal justice skills. At ITT Tech he is interested in gaining a foundation in criminal law, legal procedures, criminal evidence and criminology. He plans to enroll this fall.

Although the accident and its aftermath were hard for him to accept, Lury struggled through the hard times and is happy with his life today.

"I used to hate my life,” Lury said. “Now, I am happy to be alive and am thankful for all that I have,” he said.

Written April 21, 2009

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