Classmates, Community Pitch In For Paralyzed Boy – Ohio State Buckeyes
6/8/2005 12:00:00 AM | General
June 8, 2005
Mike Harden, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Copyright 2005 The Columbus Dispatch
Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
Republished with permission from Mike Harden, The Columbus Dispatch
Just in case visitors don’t get the message when they see the Ohio State jersey, pennant, pillow and rug in Billy George’s hospital room, he lettered a sign — by holding a marker between his teeth — that warns anyone entering, “No Michigan Fans.”
George, who turns 15 on Monday, is looking at a future cruelly reshaped from the view he had on his 14th birthday. A bullet that his 16-year-old friend Raymond Sims fired on Jan. 24 left George a quadriplegic, and he is learning how to live life from a wheelchair.
Within the past several days, said George’s mother, Deborah, he weathered a serious bout with respiratory problems.
“He had pneumonia in his left lung,” she explained, “and the bottom lobes of both lungs were starting to collapse. He still has a little of the pneumonia, but things are better.”
As though Billy’s ordeal was not enough heartbreak, Deborah George, a single, working mom, has been battling difficulties since August when the Ford Escort that she used to get to her jobs cleaning offices was stolen.
She carried liability insurance on the car, she said, but no coverage for theft. The vehicle hasn’t been found.
A month ago, while she was staying with her son at Children’s Hospital, the family’s two-bedroom apartment was burglarized.
“They took a DVD player and an Xbox,” she said.
Through it all, she remains buoyed by her son’s attitude.
“His spirits are great,” she said.
The young man’s classmates at Briggs High School are pitching in with a school and community effort to get a laptop to help him keep up with his homework. Briggs Principal Kurt Yancey said Friday that the fund is well on its way.
Members of the National Honor Society at Walnut Ridge High School, where the teen who shot George was a freshman, have held a bake sale to buy a wheelchair-adaptable art easel so he can continue painting.
“These students have an enormous concern for the well-being of others,” Honor Society adviser Christy Manson said. “Their unselfish vision allows them to recognize a need and respond.”
Eve Yearwood, internship/service learning coordinator at Walnut Ridge, noted, “Billy said of the boy who shot him, ‘He took everything from me.’ I’m proud that these dedicated students at Walnut Ridge are helping to give a dear part of it back to him.”
Jennifer Addo, a 17-year-old Walnut Ridge senior who helped raise the money for the easel, said she wants George to know that “Everyone can succeed in life. Just keep your head up, believe in yourself and follow your dreams.”
Briggs art teacher Gerald Strother has visited George at Children’s to help him with his artwork.
So has Columbus artist Bobby Spencer.
“I have asked him to teach me,” George said of Spencer. “He is paralyzed from the neck down just like me. He inspires me.”
To help the Georges through the crises they have been weathering, a fund has been established at the Sawmill Road branch of KeyBank.
Contributions can be made at any KeyBank branch or my mailing them to the Billy George Fund, KeyBank, 7460 Sawmill Rd., Columbus 43016.
Mike Harden is a Dispatch Metro columnist. He can be reached at 614-461-5215 or by e-mail at mharden@dispatch.com.
