SCI Superstar: Kristin Beale

Not everyone with a SCI is as determined as Kristin Beale was after her injury, but that is what makes her a superstar. When Kristin became paralyzed, she refused to accept the limitations doctors predicted she would face as a result of her “complete” injury. And her accomplishments are impressive as well, from becoming a marathon handcyclist to publishing several books. Read on to learn about this fierce human being.

Why She Shines

Growing up, sports were a huge part of Kristin’s life, with cheerleading and lacrosse as her favorite sports. But at 14, her life changed when she was involved in an accident on a lake in North Carolina. “I was involved in a jet ski accident in 2005 that resulted from driver inattention and a collision of two jet skis. I now have a T8 spinal cord injury,” she says. Kristin also suffered a brain injury leaving her with short-term memory loss.

Following the accident, Kristin was rushed through the mainstream hospital and rehab process, but she was not happy with the traditional rehab experience and wanted something more. “Two weeks out of the hospital,” she recalls, “I flew to California for an intensive rehabilitation gym (four hours daily, five days per week) and came home with the ability to wiggle my toes.”

The gym, Project Walk, is a big proponent of activity-based rehab. But Kristin ended up switching rehab facilities after discovering Awakenings, another California rehab facility, where she learned how to crawl on her first visit. So impressed with the trainers there, Kristin returned to Awakenings seven more times.

She also discovered something else in rehab – adaptive sports. She tried adapted tennis, surfing, lacrosse, and a few others, but she was quickly drawn to hand cycling. She loves how the sport takes the pity out of the equation, instead leaving people impressed by her abilities. She has participated in 16 marathons to date. Her first, the New York Marathon, was in 2011.

What’s Next

Kristin fell in love with writing in high school but put it on hold after her injury. After her injury however she picked it up again. She’s been a feature writer magazines, blogs, and has written several books. “My writing allows me to be more candid and honest that I’m ever able to in real life,” she says. “Partly because I’m a well-mannered girl and partly because the opportunity to express myself isn’t constant, a lot of perspective is lost.”

“With my writing, I have a chance to express myself and record those perspectives,” she continues. “That’s a big reason why publishing a book is scary: people have privilege to however much of yourself you’re willing to expose which, in the case of my book, was everything.”

At the age of 26, in 2016, her first book, a memoir called Greater Things, was published. It chronicles Kristin’s life since her injury, specifically how sports have changed her life, and it gives a glimpse into her everyday life in hopes of giving the reader a deeper perspective about life with a spinal cord injury.

“I didn’t have the idea to make my writing into a book right away,” she says. “Since high school I was writing stories, editing them, and storing them in a folder on my computer for no one’s benefit. A Christmas gift to my family in 2014 was a self-published book of all those stories – organized into chapters and only intended to be a great Christmas gift. After I gave them the books, I had the small idea to make something more succinct. I wrote eight to 10 more stories, worked with a local editor, and developed the dream of a published book.”

After a year of pitching her manuscript, it was picked up by Morgan James Publishing. “My dreams came true in my writing becoming a book and in finding the perfect publisher,” Kristin says. Next, Kristin tapped into her illustration skills and published Date Me, a collection of comics that tell funny stories of her dating adventures as a wheelchair-user. She also published A Million Suns, a nonfiction book that tells the story of how she was able to redefine her passions and rediscover happiness after her injury. She is now a literary agent as well as an author and motivational speaker.

In her personal life, Kristin has also had some big successes. Married with a daughter, she shares this aspect of her life as well in blog hosts she writes for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

— Visit her site: KristinBeale.com