MAN RECOVERRS, PLAYS BALL FROM WHEELCHAIR

SEDGEWICKVILLE, Mo. -- Ben Bollinger felt invincible when he was a paratrooper in the Army's tough-as-nails 82nd Airborne Division.

But that all changed shortly after 9 p.m. on Oct. 7, 1999, when his parachute didn't fully open during a training exercise at Fort Bragg, N.C. He plummeted 800 feet to the ground.

"The impact was so hard it jammed me into the ground," said Bollinger. "I felt my waist go numb. I couldn't move. I started hollering for help."

The accident shattered a vertebra. Bone fragments lodged in his spinal cord.

"The parachute slowed me down just enough to keep from killing me," Bollinger said.

More than 14 hours of back surgery at a North Carolina hospital were followed by another three months of grueling therapy at a veterans' hospital in St. Louis.

"I had to learn to walk all over again," he said. Just walking a few feet was an ordeal.

He returned to his parents' Bollinger County cattle farm in February 2000, determined to cope with his disability.

Today, the 32-year-old Bollinger still walks with a limp and the aid of a cane. He takes medicine daily to deal with the physical pain.

But the former Meadow Heights basketball player still loves sports. He loves to compete.

He uses a wheelchair when he plays basketball with other disabled veterans at the St. Louis VA hospital where he still goes for therapy.

He's proud of the leopard-skin design on his wheelchair, with its angled wheels designed for sports use. "I wanted to have something that stood out," he said.

In March, Bollinger and other injured veterans skied at a winter sports clinic in Colorado.

He and other spinal-cord injured veterans from the St. Louis hospital participated in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games in New York City, July 1-5.

Nearly 600 wheelchair athletes from around the nation participated in the various events, ranging from bowling to basketball, and archery to softball.

"It helps with their sense of self-worth, that they can do things and still have fun and compete," said Candie Stevenson of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, a non-profit group based in Washington, D.C.

Nearly 20,000 injured veterans are members of the organization, which has sponsored the wheelchair games for two decades.

Bollinger shot air rifles and played basketball. Participants are placed on teams based on their disabilities.

Bollinger's basketball team managed one win in three games, but nearly pulled out the third game with a last-second shot. Not surprisingly, Bollinger put up the shot that would have tied the game and sent it to overtime.

"It was in and it bounced out," he said. "I played as hard as I could. I did the best that I could."

A better person

Like everything else in his life, Bollinger refuses to dwell on what might have been. He's too busy looking ahead.

He helps out around the farm. Bollinger says he likes the quiet, country life, something that he had vowed to leave behind when he joined the Army in 1993.

Bollinger is considering enrolling at Southeast Missouri State University next year and pursuing a degree, possibly in forensic medicine or business.

A divorced father of two, Bollinger remains surprisingly upbeat. He's reluctant to talk about his former marriage. But he says he isn't bitter about the breakup or the accident.

Initially, he held out hope of returning to the Army life at Fort Bragg. "I was bound and determined I was going back to jumping and blowing stuff up again," said Bollinger.

But reality set in while he recuperated at his parents' Sedgewickville farm. Bollinger said that six months after the accident, he knew his Army career was over. The Army waited until March of this year to officially discharge him.

All in all, the accident, he says, has made him a better person.

"Before my accident, I was arrogant, out of control," said Bollinger, who admits back then he wouldn't have given handicapped people a second thought.

Now, he says, he cares about helping other disabled persons. "I am a lot better off than a lot of people," said Bollinger. "If you look around, there is always somebody worse off than you."