CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
going to before
article: going to before
On July 31, 1984, then 14-year-old Robert Galanida suffered a broken neck in a disastrous car accident. "The doctors told me that I would never walk again," recounts Robert, called Bobby by his friends and family. The sudden shock of a disabled lifestyle was almost too much to cope with. "Hearing that made me want to be taken off the machines that were keeping me alive." However, as in many of these cases, with the support of family and friends, Bobby was able to return to school and start living a new life.

Bobby was now a quadriplegic and things would never be the same again.

Christopher Reeves, the most well known quadriplegic, has become a sort of spokesman for those who deal with the disability. He admits that the cure may not be easy to get to, but that there is light at the end of the tunnel. "[C]uring the spinal cord injury is really going to be one of the greatest achievements in the history of science because it overcomes a design of evolution," Reeves said in a live interview on ABCNews.com. "The cord was not meant to be healed because an animal with a spinal cord injury would never recover sufficiently to survive in the wild. Nature decided it would be better to let them die." So, for now, those suffering from spinal injuries have little recourse but to wait for a cure to come.


Robert Galanida is a quadriplegic, after a devistating auto accident when he as 14 years old.
For all of us, the thought of being paralyzed for life is certainly a horrifying one. Simple tasks like eating and moving can suddenly become meticulous chores. When your whole lifestyle has to change, a long list of recreational activities you used to enjoy just aren't possible. Hundreds of other activities would never be experienced. For a quadriplegic thirty-something, a fast paced online computer game would usually be at the top of that list. Not for Bobby G.

Before the accident, Bobby was an active person and also an avid fan of video games. For many years after, all Bobby could do was remember the good times he had experienced while watching others play Atari and Nintendo games. His family and friends were supportive, but he longed to play the games on his own.


The whole "click and move the elephant" thing wasn't enough for Bobby.
"They would even be my hands and play for me sometimes," said Bobby. "But it wasn't the same as it was when I had the controls in my hands."

Bobby wanted to get back in "the game." Until recently, that simply just wasn't possible. Now, with recent accessible technological advances, people like Bobby are no longer cut off from the world online gaming. Real-Time Strategy titles such as Age of Empires and Command and Conquer have been accessible by people with physical disabilities for some time using specialized equipment.

These games were fast enough to be a challenge, but slow enough to control using very cumbersome equipment. They were also fun.