Wyatt Anderson, 17, finished the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday with a time of 3:56:28 — less than a year after a spinal injury left him unable to move his limbs.
Last November, the Kentucky high school senior was playing basketball with friends when he tripped going for a rebound and hit his head on a wall. He fractured his spine and was briefly paralyzed from the neck down.
“I blacked out right after for a little bit, and I couldn’t move any limb on my body,” Anderson told ABC News.
He underwent spinal fusion surgery and spent months in rehab learning to walk again. During that time, he said he was haunted by uncertainty.
“Every single day, it was in the back of my head, I was like, ‘Am I gonna walk again? Am I gonna be able to do the same thing that I was doing two weeks ago, a day ago?'”
A turning point came when a rehab therapist told him about a man who completed 50 marathons in 50 states in a single year while using a wheelchair.
“That just, like, blew my mind and motivated me,” Anderson said. As he slowly regained movement, he set his own goal: walk or run a marathon within a year.
He described holding onto the belief that “every day is a step forward” and to “just say yes to every opportunity,” even when progress stalled.
In April, Anderson completed the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon, a 13.1-mile race, as a tune-up for the bigger goal.
On Sunday, he lined up at the Chicago Marathon start with his brother, Jack Anderson, and ran the full 26.2 miles.
“I hope my story will help other people want to set a lofty goal for themselves and to believe that nothing’s impossible. [You] can do anything if you set your mind to it — truly, I mean, coming from someone who couldn’t walk at a time and now is running.”
The brothers ran to raise money for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which funds research and support for people with spinal cord injuries. Together they raised more than $24,000, according to the foundation’s website.
