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On a stretch of beach in Wildwood, New Jersey, a couple of volunteers from Jefferson Health helped Amanda Parezo onto a 10-foot longboard surfboard in the sand.

Parezo, who is paralyzed from the waist down, wore a bright pink rash guard and faced the ocean on her belly.

A larger group of people soon formed a circle around her and bent down to grip the edges of the board. In unison, they lifted Parezo into the air and carried her out into the water, like a queen in a litter.

“Yeah, Amanda!” a friend cheered nearby.

Several hundred yards into the ocean, they turned Parezo around, waited for a good wave and sent her off to surf back to shore as spectators shouted and clapped.

There were a dozen other groups and surfers in the water on a recent Sunday morning for the Life Rolls On “They Will Surf Again” event. Like Parezo, all participants had disabilities either from injuries, illnesses or genetic conditions.

The event, held every summer in Wildwood, encourages adaptive surfing and other activities for people who may use wheelchairs, walkers, prosthetics and other kinds of support.

“And it feels inclusive,” said Parezo as she rested on a blanket after riding a couple waves. “It feels like you’re not different from anybody else.”

As an occupational therapist and professor at Thomas Jefferson University, Parezo had long been aware of the challenges her patients face on a daily basis, and how they can often be excluded from activities based on assumptions that they couldn’t do it physically.

But then she came to experience them on a far more personal level. She suffered a spinal cord injury from a stray bullet in 2021, which left her paralyzed.

It’s driven her to become a passionate advocate for better disability inclusion, awareness and adaptive activities, both where she lives in Philadelphia and in other communities broadly.

“This should be every day,” Parezo said of the support offered at events like Life Rolls On. “This should be part of your life. You should include everybody in anything you do, not just surfing or beach stuff.”

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Parezo grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, but moved to Philly more than 15 years ago. She had been working as an occupational therapist for several years before one afternoon playing kickball in a neighborhood park changed her life in 2021.

She was resting on a bench when she heard gunshots nearby and was hit by a stray bullet.

“I immediately felt a sting in the side of my body,” she said. “I just lost complete control of my lower body and fell backward.”

Parezo never lost consciousness and can recall that moment with extreme clarity.

“I felt a shoosh of numbness just go down from my hips to my toes as I laid there, unable to get up,” she said, “with these flashes of my experiences with spinal cord injury and picturing my patients who have been in wheelchairs, knowing I have a spinal cord injury.”

As her friends jumped into action and called an ambulance, Parezo says she knew with certainty that she was paralyzed, already knew what rehab would look like. And she was already thinking ahead to what her future would look like in a wheelchair.

Her expertise as an occupational therapist prepared her better than most others who’ve been in her situation, she said.

“I’ve seen people with spinal cord injuries be independent, and I just knew a lot,” she said. “So, I was able to really focus on that and my rehabilitation in a positive way based on the positive things that I had seen before.”

Recovering physically from her injury was one thing, but adjusting to life without the use of her legs is still a work in progress.

“Having to do my daily routine differently, go to the bathroom differently, do [chair] transfers,” she said, naming just a few adjustments. “There’re days where my wheelchair brakes don’t work and I have a fall while I’m getting ready to go to work. That just really sets somebody back. You just end up crying instead, but you still have to push on and go to work.”

Getting involved in programs and initiatives aimed at making daily life and activities more accessible for people with disabilities has become Parezo’s mission.

She advocates for more accessible walkways where she lives in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood, including in areas with construction and detours, ramps for entryways and exits at public places and local businesses, and opportunities for kids to play tennis and other sports in wheelchairs.

Parezo is finding support for this work.

“People in the community actually want to help,” she said. “And there’s so many people that just want to know and understand better, who just have no idea. So, that’s been really something that I’ve been focusing on, is just educating the general public.”

Bringing people together through surfing and adaptive sports

At the Life Rolls On Wildwood event, Parezo was surrounded by people who already understood. The national nonprofit was founded by professional surfer Jesse Billauer more than 25 years ago after he became a quadriplegic in a surfing accident.

The local surfing event typically draws several hundred spectators and dozens of surfing participants each year.

“These events are just about creating a place where inclusivity and being together and having able-bodied people see people with disabilities and get them in the water and see what it takes,” Billauer said. “Because without the help, a lot of people in wheelchairs are stuck wherever the path ends. And this allows them to get to the water’s edge, allows them to get in waves in a safe environment, gets them excited to maybe open up doors that they never thought were possible.”

Surfing in the event was special for Parezo this year, because she got to share the experience with her friend, Kim Houck. Houck’syoungest son, Robin, who is now 3, was born paralyzed from the waist down.

For a while, Houck and her husband, Cody Houck, said they worried about Robin’s future.

“When we got his diagnosis, we didn’t know what it would look like,” Kim Houck said. “It’s like, what will life be like? How are events like this going to be different for our family?”

They’ve adapted along the way while raising Robin and his two older brothers, Peter and Dylan. Parezo then told them about the annual surfing event, which the Houcks attended for the first time last year.

“We were part of the family from the moment we stepped on the beach, and that made us feel really included and like we could do it,” Kim said. “It wasn’t difficult. For once, something wasn’t difficult. We felt like we were just like everyone else.”

The Houcks, who live in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, came back for the event this year and spent the day on the beach with Parezo. Partway through, Life Rolls On and Jefferson Health volunteers got Robin, Kim and her two older sons on surfboards to ride some waves while friends and strangers cheered them on.

“It’s great that we can do family events like this so our kids and our extended family can see it, and for it to become normalized for them so that they can be better advocates for Robin in the future,” Cody said.

Seeing Robin and others get this experience, and for them to realize that they are capable of doing many things, motivates Parezo to continue spreading awareness about disability inclusion and advocating for changes that could help future generations of people like her navigate the world.