My name is David Wes Carey. I was born and primarily raised in Bay City, Texas. As a student at Bay City High School I lettered in football, basketball, and baseball-sports were my life. When I wasn’t with the team, I was focusing on my schoolwork through a Distributive Education Program. This program allowed me to go to school half of the day and work the other (mornings) half as a courtesy clerk at a local grocery store. Through my rigorous daily schedule of schoolwork, work and athletics, I began to understand the importance of teamwork and efficient time management.

I graduated from high school in the spring of 1988. That fall I moved to Arizona and enrolled at Scottsdale Community College (SCC), as a student athlete. I came to SCC with the dream of one day transferring to Arizona State University to play baseball with the Sun Devils. That dream was shattered on the night of March 7, 1989. As I was sleeping in my bed, a teammate and roommate whom I trusted returned to our apartment with a stolen gun. Asleep in my bed, I was not aware that they were playing around with a loaded 9mm pistol. Not realizing the gun was loaded; my teammate pulled the trigger and fired a bullet that traveled down the hall and through my door before striking me in the back. After hitting me between the shoulder blades the bullet then proceeded to travel up my spine before resting in my jaw where to this day it still remains. The freak occurrence altered my life forever. At 19 years of age, I became a quadriplegic.

My education was interrupted and my athletic career ended after my accident in March of 1989. In the fall of 1989 I returned to SCC after extensive rehabilitation. I worked on my Associates of Arts Degree while living in hospitals and nursing homes. I eventually graduated in the spring of 1993. I continued my education at Arizona State University that fall and graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physical Education in December of 1997.

Now, that I have graduated, I am pursuing several personal and vocational goals. Included in these goals are my plans to work on issues regarding accessibility for the disabled community. As an advocate, I would like to increase society’s consciousness regarding issues such as a disabled person’s equal right to simply enter a public building and have access to public transportation. Furthermore, I would like to use my personal experience as a gunshot victim to educate people about the dangers of guns. I am a firm believer that educating the general public about these dangers, future casualties can and will be avoided.

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