Bonner Paddock was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when he was just 11 years old, Yahoo Health reports. Doctors told his mother the he “would most likely be confined to a wheelchair by age 15 and dead by 20.”
After years of his parents down-playing his condition’s severity, as well as dealing with being bullied by his peers for being visibly different while growing up, Paddock — now 30 — stopped hiding his disease and set a goal for himself: To be the first person with Cerebral Palsy to climb Mount Kilimanjaro unassisted.
He succeeded. Shortly thereafter he began a grueling two-year training regimen that would allow him to enter the record books yet again; as the first person with CP to finish the Ironman World Championship.
Paddock, now 39 — who recently published a book titled “One More Step” — explains to IMG Speakers that everything he has ever done — and will continue to do — will be so that there will never be another child that will suffer from this disease.
While he is still recovering from the stress he put on his tendons and the extreme dehydration he experienced while participating in the Ironman Championships, Paddock is now focusing on his One Man Foundation, that raises money to help encourage kids with disabilities to go above and beyond their limits.
