New Orleans man creates gym for amputees, quadriplegics
March 21, 2023
For amputees and wheelchair-bound people, the world can be a little complicated. Life changed for many of these people in a "split second" after accidents.
Now a New Orleans man is trying to give them a safe space to work on their minds, bodies and souls.
Scripps News' national correspondent Tammy Estwick spoke to Mark Raymond Jr. about his first-of-its-kind gym for disabled people in Louisiana.
Watch Split Second Foundation founder Mark Raymond Jr. in his appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show this Tuesday, May 7th!
The last thing Mark Raymond Jr. remembers in those final seconds before the accident was standing in the back of his buddy’s boat at the end of a perfect July afternoon in 2016, and staring down into the waters of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain. Then he dove in and instantly felt his forehead slam into the sandy bottom of the lake. “I couldn’t move and realized, 'I’m probably going to drown,’ " Raymond tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. “My last thoughts were about my mom and just praying that my friends would realize what was happening.” He was close to death when his pals pulled him out of the water and performed CPR. Two weeks later, Raymond awoke from a medically induced coma in a New Orleans hospital to discover that he’d fractured the fifth vertebrae in his neck and could no longer walk or fully use his hands. “I quickly learned that my life was going to be really different,” he says. “To call it a huge adjustment is an understatement.” Read more.
Split Second Fitness founder Mark Raymond Jr. talks about his organization which is the first gym focusing on individuals with a disabling condition and transforming individuals’ hope into action. Read more.
