FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas (Dec. 20, 2017) -- "Keep your head on a swivel" is advice normally reserved for the theater of war, not a theater hall. But Carlana Stone left few Soldiers' heads unturned with an unscripted, unapologetic, upbeat tale of her resilient triumph over paralysis.
As a 16-year-old student council president, gymnast and cheerleader, a car accident left Stone paralyzed below the waist and destined to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She zoomed from topic to topic as she rolled across every inch of the stage.
"One of the things I'm actually going to address today is the first time I left rehab and my new identity, if you will," Stone said before delivering two sessions of a resiliency guest speaker program for the Services of Joint Base San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston Theatre. "The wheelchair became my new lead. It was my prop. It still is. But it's also been a shield, for me, and a distraction. So getting completely honest with myself, diving in and being truly authentic and genuine and vulnerable, it just makes everything so easy.
"So when I look at my reintegration to society, and kind of stepping out, I was a gymnast and a cheerleader and played every sport known to man prior to being paralyzed, and then, boom, in the blink of an eye, I'm like: 'Who am I? What do I have to offer?'" Stone continued. "My [butt] was my greatest asset, so how was I going to find this love and get this acceptance? I was a gymnast used to doing my dismount off the balance beam and having people explode in applause, and then, boom, all of a sudden I'm at the valet looking at people and seeing the look of pity.
"That has been my biggest thing to overcome."
Stone shared her story of resilience with hundreds of troops and civilians in early December at the request of U.S. Army North Commander Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, Senior Commander of Fort Sam Houston and Camp Bullis.
"I could relate with much of the self-talk experience she described while reconciling with her image of past, current and future self," said Lt. Col. Brian Pederson, 48, who handles Ready & Resilient Integration for U.S. Army Installation Management Command. "After suffering a blast-induced traumatic brain injury and while [and still] dealing with the physical changes from the injury, I experienced a great deal of internal dialogue that reflected upon my pre-injury healthy, vibrant state, compared to the current afflicted state and projecting out to a disabled state post-Army that in itself became another obstacle to overcome."
"Back in 2013, I was injured in an IED blast in Afghanistan and had a pretty significant TBI," Pederson continued. "Looking backward at all the journey that I've gone through just from 2013 to now and that kind of being a microcosm for her entire presentation, I can see where I was looking at my present self and I was very much unable to do what I had done previously. I felt that I was not thinking nearly as clearly and having problems finding the right words. Things that had come naturally and very easily to me, I now was looking at my past self, based upon my present injury, and then projecting that into the future as this is the best that I'm going to be going forward. The longer that it took for me to see any healing from my TBI, the more I felt like that.
"And that's what really came out the most in Ms. Stone's presentation was that she was absolutely reflecting about what she thought she was and what she thought she was going to be prior to the injury, and then in discussing about how she just made it through the recovery phase. The physical recovery phase obviously took less time than the emotional recovery phase -- still ongoing, as she was very emotional here. That was the one big arc I saw that was similar."
Stone admittedly became obsessed early on in her recovery with finding that commonality.
"With unearthing the things that we share," she explained. "Paralysis is so personal."
"The challenge, I think, is using your old self as the measuring stick," Pederson said. "That's the point that maybe wasn't necessarily taken away by all in the audience. … For her, new normal is normal, regardless of external views. Again, I could see that parallel as I was moving forward and I could no longer measure myself against who I thought I was before I was injured."
IMCOM Headquarters and Headquarters Company Commander Capt. Thomas Sanchez Jr. also sensed a connection with Stone's story of resilience. Two years ago, he sustained a broken neck and shoulder from a motorcycle accident while on a mentorship ride in Daegu, South Korea.
"It was very interesting because I broke my neck, so I could understand where she was coming from," Sanchez said. "In a split second, you can go from running and doing all this stuff to you're in the hospital for six months or so. I understood that one. I remember telling myself, 'I'll never run again,' and 'I can barely walk right now,' But if you're resilient enough, I think you can come back from all that. It was great hearing it from her, who is paralyzed, yet she didn't take it as: 'Woe is me.'
"What was really eye-opening was to see the other side of it, what if I would have broken my neck permanently?" continued Sanchez, whose mobility returned after a year of recovery in the Warrior Transition Unit. "I still have some pain and some numbness that I just try to deal with, but it was good to hear and see from her, that even with her severity, she's still doing everything any other person would do."
Stone has a knack for making extraordinary accomplishments look easy, which has prompted introductions such as: "She can't walk, but she can fly." Stone searched for a stem cell miracle cure in the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. She later become the first wheelchair-bound television reporter in Miami and an award-winning television producer in Hollywood. She wrote the book: "Never Give In, Never Give Up: A Gripping and Inspiring Story About How to Soar Through Life's Adversities."
"I don't despise logic as far as not wanting to be defined by my physical capability or lack of -- to find new ways of being able to blast through those stereotypes or those stigmas that work for other victims," she said. "I can fly an airplane. I can scuba dive, and I can ride a Harley. The list goes on and on. They're not all that extreme, but it's from the most fundamental things to -- another thing, too ..."
At times, Stone's direction seemed scattered, her thoughts disjointed, yet she always circled back and delivered her messages to the troops.
"It's kind of interesting because I suffered from a TBI, too, because I was unconscious and I had real bad head trauma from that accident," Sanchez said. "It's funny because if you've had a TBI, and you see it from another person, you're able to recognize it, basically. Whenever I start jumping around and everything, I'm like, 'OK, I do that sometimes.' So I walk around with a black leather notebook and I write everything in there. If not, I'll veer to the left or right real quick. So, I understood where she was coming from, and all that."
After three decades of seemingly never-ending recovery, Stone, 49, remembers some of her initial struggles and earliest conquests as if they were yesterday.
"A lot of it, too, is recognizing that we're all paralyzed," she recalled. "I can remember my Daddy talking to a man at our church and saying: "Oh my, God, what am I going to do? How am I going to fix her? She's handicapped.' And the other guy said, 'Dave, we're all handicapped.' That answer just wasn't good enough for my Dad, but for me, it showed me: 'Oh my, gosh, so I can relate to people and people can relate to me.' And I began to dive a little further into the ability of others to see with their hearts and really recognize a lot of beautiful things in just the human spirit and the human capacity."
Stone is convinced that sharing her story of resilience can only help others become more resilient.
"I appreciate that you might say that I am helping," she explained. "But I really believe that by sharing my story, in that sharing, we make a connection. And I believe in making a connection, we find answers.
"So the idea of keeping my finger on the pulse and reaching out, I'm empowered and learning resilience from Y'all," she told the troops. "My gosh, Y'all really embody resilience, bouncing back."
Stone, however, possesses an uncanny knack for inspiring resilience.
"We're all veterans of life and I don't think any of us is averse to adversity," she said. "It kind of pretty much takes all of us. I really believe we find out what we're made of when our back's against the wall. That's when we discover what we're made of -- when our true mettle is revealed. Circumstances really don't create character, per se, but they reveal our character, I believe. And I think that we surprise ourselves each and every time.
"As far as resiliency is concerned, for me, I've finally come to terms with the fact that it's something that's cyclical. It goes on. Our there becomes our new here. And then we aim for something else or we endure something else. We come across another obstacle or what have you and we're better prepared for that."
Which begs the question: Can resilience be trained? You must first encounter adversity, and if you're resilient, you'll bounce back. But you can learn how to be resilient before you run into the hurdle, correct?
"Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!" Stone replied. "For instance, fear is a paralyzing force, as is guilt, as are a lot of those invisible wounds, that invisible shrapnel, we've all got. My [wheel] chair is a great prop and a great distraction because people think 'that's her biggest …' No, the chair is the easiest part. … The whole stereotype thing and the preconceived notions, I believe that regardless of the struggles that we face, I believe that it's up to us, it's up to me. What I've found in my experience is that I teach people how to treat me. I take great pride in projecting somebody who's strong, who's obviously been through some adversity, but I don't have victim stamped all over my forehead, and I go on.
"How can we help one another? I think just by sharing our stories, we gain new perspective, new insight about how somebody else might do something, but I'm telling you, in our deepest, darkest moments, that's when stuff happens. That's when the doors of improvisation and innovation -- innovation is like born out of necessity. Just tapping into 49 years of life…"
"She's doing more than I'll ever do," said Sanchez, 42, former vice president of the Daegu Motorcycle Club who likes to think it's a matter of when, not if, he will ride again. "I'm not back on my bike but I have it in front of me. I'm going to fix it up, but I'm taking my time with it. If I do ride again, I'll just probably ride around here because I'm still healing from my injury. Even though it's been a couple years now, I'm still in physical therapy."
Sanchez easily identified his greatest takeaway from Stone's presentation for his situation.
"They tell you to get used to your new body," Sanchez said. "It's really hard for people like me who were a 300 PT test Soldier and doing Olympic lifting and cross-fit every day to have to adapt to it. It was great hearing from her perspective that you have to adapt to your new body, too, to regain your life back, basically.
"I would definitely say it was inspirational because you really don't realize how much you're grateful sometimes until your family or your friends or you, personally, go through those injuries to have the resilience to see how to overcome those things," Sanchez continued. "It was impressive. I saw where I could've went to if I would have got paralyzed, especially when she talked about having a friend with a broken neck and all she could do was shrug."
Carlana's desire to help the troops seemed to trump every unturned stone along her journey, to include still another of her most significant turning points.
"One of the things that has paralyzed me is not having the courage to ask for help," she said. "And finding the courage to ask for help, I realize that that's what it is, you know? Anyway, I could go on forever."
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