Crystal
What the Segway has done for Crystal
Crystal, age 14, loves going to school and being with her friends, ballet dancing, and riding her Segway Personal Transporter. Crystal was born with “Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome” (HLHS), the most complex of all congenital heart defects. Crystal was the first patient to pioneer a cardiac life-saving procedure that children can now survive. In addition to multiple reconstructive surgeries, Crystal suffers from the effects of a major stroke which occurred early in life. Still, she never fails to inspire those she meets and she always has a smile. As a result of the kindness of others, including those associated with Easter Seals, Crystal can now take part in Easter Seals walks with the use of her Segway Personal Transporter which was given to her by Easter Seals sponsors and her classmates when she was a sixth grader at McKelvie Intermediate School. She now uses her Segway to move around the halls of Bedford High School.
Notes from a Father
What the Segway had done for Crystal
“There is an adage that our family lives by in which many other Easter Seals’ families and sponsors can identify: ‘We don’t only believe in miracles, we rely on them.’
From time-to-time I think jokingly about how that mantra could apply at my job, but it is truly a blessing to witness how miracles have taken place around our daughter, Crystal. Most miracles are not the ‘fire-and-brimstone’-type miracles that make news headlines, but rather, the smaller miracles created by people, such as when Crystal’s school rallied to raise the funding needed to present her with her own Segway Personal Transporter so that she could keep-up with her friends. These are the miracles, the ones created by other children and members of a community, that make God smile. They certainly make Crystal smile.”
