Nine years ago this December in Ketchum, Idaho, Karen Morrison was working as an assistant to a physical therapist. It was there that she met a young woman named Amanda, a talented athlete who had been a four-sport rookie of the year at Yale when she was in a terrible car accident that left her completely unable to use the left side of her body. The physical therapist she was working for asked Karen to do some exercises with Amanda in the water. She says “We both got kind of bored, so we slowly started working on swimming…we came up with a unique way for her to swim with only her right arm and right leg.” Amanda’s natural athletic tendencies pushed the physical therapy into serious training and the two ended up attending a national Paralympic swim meet. It was this experience—seeing all those athletes pushing themselves and feeling good about their bodies—that ultimately made her start AquAbility.

If you want to learn more about AquAbility or volunteer to help, visit their website at http://aquability.org/.

Read the full Idaho Speakeasy story: idahospeakeasy.com/karen-morrison-story

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