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David Paul says it’s hard to imagine himself as an ASU graduate with honors.
“Honestly, it hasn’t sunk in,” he said. “I’m still decompressing from the exams and things.”
Like hundreds of other students, the 33-year-old Phoenix man graduated with a business degree Thursday.
But his road through college wasn’t typical.
Instead, his story is one of tragedy and triumph, beginning one fateful Thanksgiving Day in 1998.
“The next thing I knew I’m waking up in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, with no sight and with my legs amputated,” Paul said.
Paul had been in a horrific crash with a semi-truck, hitting the 18-wheeler head-on.
Although he nearly died, Paul doesn’t remember the accident, which caused him to lose a one-year period of his memory.
“The emotions took a toll after a while,” he said. “I felt the tears far more times than I can remember.”
But several months after the crash, Paul reached a turning point.
“One day he sat up and said ‘Well I can sit around here and cry or I can get up and do something with my life,’” said David’s mother, Carol Paul.
After the crash, Paul spent a year in the hospital recovering -- learning to walk with prosthetic legs and regaining memory.
He needed another year to learn braille and other speech skills.
“It was a difficult time,” he said. “You wonder what you’ll even be able to accomplish,” Paul said.
“The best way I can explain it: imagine walking on stilts while being blindfolded.”
But he persisted. And for the past eight years, Paul's passed class after class at the business school.
He admits it hasn’t been easy.
But his teachers say he’s done more than just pass: he’s excelled.
“David's graduating with honors, not many graduate with honors,” said Nancy Robberts, an ASU professor who’s had Paul in several classes.
Paul says he has no immediate plans, but he’s leaning towards attending graduate or law school
But for the moment, he’s just letting it sink in.
“It’s been action, action, action since the accident,” he said. “I’ve taken classes every semester and during the summers. Now, I get a little time off, and I’m going to enjoy that.”
