The handicaps of the wheelchair basketball players from Hannover United
Hannover United’s wheelchair basketball team, who are about to make the play-offs, are more than normal athletes. Because they can be sure: Even with a handicap, they could become professional athletes. Vanessa Erskine, Tobias Hell and Alexander Budde have turned their destinies into happiness in life.
Also read: That’s why coach Martin Kluck decided to play wheelchair basketball even without a handicap
Vanessa Erskine: Trampled by the cops
Your story could be scenes from a western movie. When the American Vanessa Erskine (27) was 16 years old, she worked on farms to supplement her pocket money. On some farms there was bull riding, here she helped with the animals.
On April 30, 2011, she was about to bring a bull from the arena back into the cage when another bull got out of the cage – the lock wasn’t properly closed. The bull angrily ran into the arena and threw Erskine into the air so high that she flew higher than the roof of the building. “It must have been ten to eleven meters,” says Erskine.
Her last memory was in the air. When she landed on the ground, she lost consciousness – which protected her from the images: the bull trampled on her, spinning her across the floor. “I saw video footage afterwards.”
When Erskine woke up again, she was already in the ambulance. “In the first hour it was not clear whether I would survive.” Her spinal cord was severed, her spine fractured several times, her lungs collapsed, and a heart hematoma made surgery impossible.
After two and a half months, Erskine was able to leave the hospital – as a paraplegic in a wheelchair.
When she talks about her fate today, she doesn’t say how bad it all was. She raves about the children’s hospital, how beautifully painted the walls were. From negative energy: no trace.
“I didn’t fall into a hole. Sure, it’s a different life than I imagined when I was twelve. But it’s no worse life. We decide for ourselves how we deal with fate,” she says – and can even get something positive out of the whole thing: “I wasn’t particularly athletic before. If the accident hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be a professional wheelchair basketball player today – and I wouldn’t be in Hanover,” she adds and laughs.
Tobias Hell: paraplegic after severe abdominal pain
Tobias Hell (21) is paraplegic – but no one knows exactly how that happened. He was seven years old when he came home from school, had severe stomach pains and could no longer move. It was a phantom pain radiating from the back. Because a vein had burst there, the blood ran out and damaged the spinal cord. The seven-year-old was operated on, the paraplegia remained, but the doctors were able to restore feeling in his legs.
“That’s very rare with paraplegia,” explains Hell. “It could have been worse for me. If the spot on my back had been higher, my arms could have been paralyzed as well.” The 21-year-old is more capable of focusing on the positive. “I didn’t take it as that bad at all. Maybe it was old age, you can quickly get used to new situations, it wouldn’t be so easy today. I think it was harder for my parents.” For him, life with a disability is normal, “I have the same problems as others my age.”
The doctors suspected that Hell could have hit his back and injured himself. “There are all kinds of different ways of being disabled – and all kinds of handicaps. That’s important to know.”
When he was a teenager, a wheelchair basketball coach approached him in the supermarket, which is how Hell found his first club (Red Rollers Cottbus). “I went to a normal high school and none of my friends had a disability. They all had their football and other sports, I just had my physical therapy,” he recalled. “When I started wheelchair basketball, I finally had something to tell,” he says and laughs.
He trained with the older ones, who had already left youth as disabled. “That helped me tremendously because they were able to teach me so much outside of sport. For example, requests to get funds. I didn’t even know I had a claim.”
Alexander Budde: Already operated 40 times
At the age of 21, Alexander Budde lay on the operating table so often that he can hardly count them. “I guess there were 40 to 45 operations,” he says. Bude was born with sickle feet and a hole in his spine (the technical term is spina bifida). As a result, he had outstanding sensitivity in his lower extremities, and his sense of balance was also disturbed.
“I can walk short distances without a wheelchair, but I have to hold on,” he explains. It is also problematic that he does not feel any pain, for example if he has a pressure point or a stone in his shoe. “I had sores all the time.”
Shortly after his birth, the doctors tried again and again to straighten his sickle feet with operations. “Everyone really fought tirelessly for me, but in the end you fight against genetics,” says Budde. “It was all very difficult for my parents, I was separated from them immediately after birth and put in an intensive care unit.” The surgeries ran through his childhood, at some point there were so many that he could no longer walk for a few years and lost the muscles in his legs. “That was the first time I was in a wheelchair for a long period of time.” He is grateful to the device: “Without it I would have been really lost.”
In 2011 he discovered wheelchair basketball for himself. “After 20 minutes I didn’t want to leave the field anymore.” Five years later he moved from Maschen to the sports boarding school in Hannover and continues to play for Hannover United. “I’m super happy here,” he says happily.
“It could have been worse for me. If the hole in my spine had been a few centimeters higher, I could have had a severe intellectual disability.” He uses his knowledge to help people with Down syndrome. “I am extremely grateful that I can lead such a good life despite my disability. I have my own apartment and my sport and am studying architecture,” he says happily. It has been almost two years since his last operation.
The handicaps of the remaining United players
Christopher Luebrecht is the only player on the team who plays without a handicap.
Mariska Beijer: The Dutch woman had a difficult start in life. As a baby, she was diagnosed with cancer. As a toddler, weakened by chemotherapy, she fell down the stairs. She lost her right foot due to a medical error. When she was ten she injured her other leg in a skiing accident and has been in a wheelchair ever since.
Amit Vigoda plays with an amputated lower leg.
Jan Sadler was born with a hole in the spine (technical term: spina bifida).
Jan Haller has causal regression syndrome.
Jan Goose suffered a cervical and pelvic injury in an accident.
Oliver Janz Like Alexander Budde and Jan Sadler, he was born with a hole in his spine.
By Josina Kelz