A North Carolina man is celebrating a remarkable accomplishment following a terrible accident. Three years after being paralyzed in a diving accident, Eddy Matinyit is about to graduate with a master’s degree.
Matinyit moved to the United States to further his education after spending the majority of his childhood in Kenya. In May 2022, he was visiting friends and they decided to swim at a Raleigh community pool.
“The last thing that I remember is me just diving in the shallow end, hit my head on the ground and then I passed out,” she said.
He awoke four days later in the hospital, devastated to discover he was paralyzed from the waist down.
“That one broke me,” he admitted. Matinyit, a former runner, would never walk again. He spent the next fourteen months in the hospital before moving to a rehabilitation center in Warrenton, North Carolina.
“I was depressed because it was very difficult for me to come to terms with what had happened,” he told me.
The facility is thousands of miles away from his family in Kenya, complicating matters further.
“It’s extremely difficult, especially for my family, including my daughter and wife. It hasn’t been easy being away from them for the past five years,” Matinyit admitted.
Nonetheless, he was surrounded by his friends.
“They’ve always been there for me, supporting me. “They gave me unwavering support,” he said.
As his recovery progressed, his perspective began to shift. “I realized people were still living their lives. “That doesn’t mean the end of everything,” he explained.
Matinyit was determined to continue his education, so he took online courses while pursuing his master’s degree at the University of the Potomac in Washington, D.C.
He has little movement in his fingers, but that did not deter him.
“The best that I could do was to use the knuckles, so when I discovered I could do the knuckles, that became the norm,” Matinyit told me.
His community in North Carolina and family in Kenya supported him along the way. He sends videos and makes FaceTime calls to his wife and 8-year-old daughter. He will attend his graduation in Washington, D.C. next week.
While his daughter will not be present to see him graduate, he knows his accomplishments make her proud.
“I’m telling her, ‘Your daddy’s going to school,’ and she really gets inspired by that,” he told me.
He hopes that his story will inspire others who are facing an injury or a difficult situation. “People should not think about giving up,” he said. “We’ve still got more life to live.”
Reference: After diving accident leaves him paralyzed, NC man will graduate with master’s degree