Michigan Man Caring For Recently Paralyzed Brother Is Now Paralyzed After Swimming Accident

A Michigan man caring for his recently paralyzed brother is now paralyzed as well. Adam Chaffee, 23, of Kalamazoo, was injured in a swimming accident on Sunday. One of his friends pushed him off the dock as he was attempting to do a flip into the water. Chaffee hit his head and severed his spinal cord. Eight months ago, Matt Chaffee, 25, was injured in a motorcycle crash and is now a paraplegic.

During an interview with Michigan Live after Adam’s accident, Matt said that although the family realized that his brother will not likely ever regain feeling in some parts of his body, they are hopeful that he will regain the use of his arms.

“Being able to use a manual wheelchair instead of an electric wheelchair, that would be a huge blessing,” Matt added.

Matt Chaffee is paralyzed from the chest down following the Memphis motorcycle crash late last fall. He punctured both lungs, broke eight ribs, and shattered his spine in the accident. Adam moved in with his brother to help in his recovery and to take care of him. Matt gives Adam an immense amount of credit for helping him “adjust to his new life” and for aiding him in developing a positive attitude about the future.

“I feel like I was just starting to get comfortable with my disability,” Matt said. “I was starting to become positive again. I had a better outlook on life, then all of a sudden this happens to him.”

At this time, Adam has no motor function and a complete spinal cord injury, according to his family — which has remained by his side at the hospital. The brothers lost their father to a heart attack three years ago. Friends have created a GoFundMe page to help with the mounting medical expenses Adam will incur in the foreseeable future.

Excerpt from the GoFunMe page created to help the Michigan brother:

“For those of you who do not know the Chaffee family very well, they are the most kind-hearted, genuine people you will ever meet, despite what they have gone through these past few years,’ the administrator wrote of the family on the page. In January 2012, Matt and Adam’s father, Greg Chaffee, passed away due to complications of a heart attack at the age of 55. Greg was one of the most generous and kind people you could ever meet, you can see those same traits in both of his sons, Matt and Adam. He is currently breathing with a tracheostomy and is beginning to have sensation and movement in his arms. He has been able to take breaths over the ventilator and doctors are hoping within the week he will be strong enough to breathe on his own, allowing him to speak again. This after devoting the past few months to helping his brother. Watching Adam taking care of his brother after the accident will prove how close they truly are. Cooking him breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, helping him in and out of the car, carrying him on his back up and down stairs, helping him stretch, and the countless other times Adam has helped his brother shows how dedicated they are to each other. Besides being born as brothers, they’re also best friends. They are now both paralyzed with complete spinal cord injuries, they are in this together.”

Adam Chaffee was one semester shy of graduating from college with a degree in geology. “It’s going to be extremely difficult, but I think he’s the kind of guy that will stay positive through it,” Matt Chaffee said. “Now it’s like we both have this life sentence of disability, so now we have to deal with it together. We can help each other along the way. I think I can take care of him; it’s going to be kind of funny seeing a paraplegic taking care of a quadriplegic,” Matt noted during in an interview with WWMT.

The GoFundMe page had raised $30,000 of its stated goal of $50,000 by Friday morning. Matt Chaffee said that until a cure for paralysis is found, he and Adam will just “tough it out — together.”

[Image via GoFundMe and Instagram]