TEEN PARALYZED IN NOVEMBER RAN THE CHICAGO MARATHON
Wyatt Anderson, a 17-year-old senior at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky, ran the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 11, 2026, less than a year after a basketball fall left him paralyzed from the neck down. He crossed the finish line in 3 hours, 56 minutes and 28 seconds with his brother, Jack, at his side, and the pair ran to raise money for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
The injury happened in November 2025. Anderson said he was playing basketball with friends when he went for a rebound, tripped and hit a wall headfirst.
“I blacked out right after for a little bit, and I couldn’t move any limb on my body,” he told ABC News.
He was taken to UofL Hospital in Louisville, where surgeons fused his spine. From there he moved to Frazier Rehab Institute, and WDRB/WAVE reported he spent a month there, followed by six more weeks of outpatient therapy.
The early goals were small. KSBW reported he worked toward eating on his own and walking down a hallway. “Every single day, it was in the back of my head, I was like, ‘Am I gonna walk again? Am I gonna be able to do the same thing that I was doing two weeks ago, a day ago?'” he told ABC News.
The marathon idea came from his therapist, who told him about a man who ran 50 marathons in 50 states in one year while using a wheelchair. “That just, like, blew my mind and motivated me,” Anderson said.
“I set a goal to run a marathon within a year without being able to walk at the time,” he told WDRB/WAVE.
He built up to it. In April 2026, he finished the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon, a 13.1-mile race, and WDRB/WAVE reported he then trained for months for Chicago.
The brothers ran for the Reeve Foundation, which funds spinal cord injury research and supports people living with paralysis, the New York Post reported. WLKY reported they raised more than $22,000 among a field of 55,000 runners.
Friend Boone Wilcox told Spectrum News 1: “It really does feel great knowing that we were there from the beginning, from once that incident happened, and then now seeing him being able to run half marathons and full marathons.”
After the race, Anderson sent ABC News a video message with some advice. “Just take it day by day. You can do it. Most importantly, be positive and smile,” he said. He added that smiling, even a faked one, “really does change your whole attitude.”
“I hope my story will help other people want to set a lofty goal for themselves and to believe that nothing’s impossible,” he said.
On October 15, 2026, Anderson spoke to spinal cord injury patients at UofL, KSBW reported.
