Extreme Wheelchair

Murderball

Amazon Price: $0.99 (as of 05/27/2012)

Quad rugby as played by the US team, between 2002 games in Sweden and the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. Young men, most with spinal injuries, play this rough and tumble sport in special chairs, seated gladiators. We get to know several and their families. They talk frankly about their injuries, feelings in public, sex lives, competitiveness, and love of the game. There's also an angry former team member gone north to coach the Canadian team, tough on everyone, including his viola-playing son. We meet a recently injured man, in rehab, at times close to despair, finding possible joy in quad rugby. After Athens, the team meets young men injured in war: the future stars of Team USA.

Climbing Back

by: Mark Wellman, John Flinn

Amazon Price: $24.99 (as of 05/27/2012)

There is almost no limit to what we can accomplish except perhaps in our own minds. That is the message delivered to us by Mark Wellman. Crippled by a mountain-climbing accident, and perhaps further injured by his own impatient action, Mark was faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But, finding strength and hope in his family and friends, he has in turn become an inspiration to millions of people. Mark has designed equipment and developed programs to inspire and motivate others. Climbing Back is the story of Mark's struggle to survive a disabling accident, to become a park ranger and an accomplished wheelchair athlete, and ultimately to climb the sheer granite faces of El Capitan and Half Dome. These ascents regularly challenge the world's best rock climbers. With his glorious dreams, his strong will and determination, and his bold approach to life, Mark Welman challenges all of us to continue to strive toward loftier goals

GIMP: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold -or You Can Play

by: Mark Zupan, Tim Swanson

Amazon Price: $4.38 (as of 05/27/2012)

Mark Zupan was a college soccer star, out drinking one night with friends. Tired from the game and from a few too many beers, he decided to take a nap in the back of his best friend's pickup truck. Still asleep when the vehicle started and drove away, he was suddenly jolted awake as the truck crashed. Mark was thrown into a canal and was stuck in frigid water, barely clinging to a tree branch, for fourteen hours. When he was finally rescued, Mark discovered the terrible truth-he'd broken his neck and would most likely be a quadriplegic, facing life in a wheelchair, with only limited use of his four limbs.

At first Mark's only goal was to walk again, and when that proved impossible, he fell into the depths of despair and retreated from the world and from the people closest to him, increasingly bitter and furious with himself. But through love, friendship, and an introduction to a new sport, Mark realized that he could live a more-than-full life in a chair and has gone on to create an existence that's truly exceptional.