posted on October 11, 2004 02:08:39 AM
Omigosh ... too too sad!...
"BEDFORD, N.Y. (Oct. 11) - Christopher Reeve, the star of the ''Superman'' movies whose near-fatal riding accident nine years ago turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research, died Sunday of heart failure, his publicist said. He was 52.
Reeve fell into a coma Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home, his publicist, Wesley Combs told The Associated Press by phone from Washington, D.C., on Sunday night. His family was at his side at the time of death.
Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound, a common complication for people living with paralysis. In the past week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious systemic infection.
''On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank Northern Westchester Hospital for the excellent care they provided to my husband,'' Dana Reeve, Christopher's wife, said in a statement. ''I also want to thank his personal staff of nurses and aides, as well as the millions of fans from around the world who have supported and loved my husband over the years.''
Reeve broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Va.
Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby Congress for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury and to move an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.
''Hollywood needs to do more,'' he said in the March 1996 Oscar awards appearance. ''Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else. There is no challenge, artistic or otherwise, that we can't meet.''
He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 production of ''Rear Window,'' a modern update of the Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who becomes convinced a neighbor has been murdered. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor.
''I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story,'' Reeve said. ''But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face. With so many close-ups, I knew that my every thought would count.''
In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized workout regimen made his legs and arms stronger. He also regained sensation in other parts of his body. He had vowed to walk again.
''I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery,'' Reeve said.
Reeve's support of stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry earlier this month during the second presidential debate.
His athletic, 6-foot-4-inch frame and love of adventure made him a natural, if largely unknown, choice for the title role in the first ''Superman'' movie in 1978. He insisted on performing his own stunts.
Although he reprised the role three times, Reeve often worried about being typecast as an action hero.
''Look, I've flown, I've become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I've faced my peers, I've befriended children and small animals and I've rescued cats from trees,'' Reeve told the Los Angeles Times in 1983. ''What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn't been done?''
Reeve was born Sept. 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter. About the age of 10, he made his first stage appearance - in Gilbert and Sullivan's ''The Yeoman of the Guard'' at McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J.
Active in many sports, Reeve owned several horses and competed in equestrian events regularly. Witnesses to the 1995 accident said Reeve's horse had cleared two of 15 fences during the jumping event and stopped abruptly at the third, flinging the actor headlong to the ground. Doctors said he fractured the top two vertebrae in his neck and damaged his spinal cord.
No plans for a funeral were immediately announced.
A few months after the accident, he told interviewer Barbara Walters that he considered suicide in the first dark days after he was injured. But he quickly overcame such thoughts when he saw his children.
''I could see how much they needed me and wanted me... and how lucky we all are and that my brain is on straight.''
posted on October 11, 2004 04:22:16 AM
I cant imagine living being paraylized from the neck down.I guess we all have to be greatful that we have our health-everything else is secondary.
Chris had a horse farm in western Massachuessetts.One of our troopers out of our headquarters stopped him for doing 80 in a 55 mph zone on the Taconic St Parkway.When the trooper realized who it was he said "Mr Reeves are you trying to drive faster then a speeding bullet"? They both laughed and when the trooper got back to the barracks I asked him, well did you give him a ticket? He said yes I did-80 in a 55mph is a little fast..even for superman.
posted on October 11, 2004 08:05:18 AM
Sad! He surely did try. I hadn’t heard the news of his death, although I have “Headline News” on right now. Well, As I wrote this, “Headline News” came on with the announcement of Christopher Reeves death.
Oddly enough we have 2 close friends who are quadriplegics, like Reeves. One who has been so since a diving accident 26 years ago, and he is an endless source of inspiration for us, as he is always emotionally up, is a web designer although he can only move 1 knuckle of one finger, but he has multiple web sites himself and does site work for others, it is amazing. We all know he is living on borrowed time, as he has lived much longer than most quadriplegics. He too has ENDLESS problems with “pressure wounds” and seems to constantly be fighting one infection after the other.
Our other friend just became a quadriplegic. He was fixing the roof on a small shed, and was up about 3 rungs of the ladder. The ladder wasn’t secure, and flipped him backwards and broke his neck! Fortunately, he was a very healthy man, and quite fit at 61. What a difference a day makes! Healthy one moment, paralyzed the next.
Anytime we start to feel sorry for ourselves, we need to think of such as these…..we have nothing to complain about.
~"It does not matter what I think, it does not matter what you think. The only thing which matters is: What is the TRUTH!"~
posted on October 11, 2004 09:24:38 AM
If anyone was going to come back from that sort of injury, it would have been Chris Reeve. My condolences to his family and his organization http://www.christopherreeve.org which will continue his work.
Friends don't let Friends say stupid things like Friends don't let friends vote Republican!
[ edited by ebayvet on Oct 11, 2004 09:24 AM because why doesn't stupid Vendio use regular html coding like the rest of us!!!]
[ edited by ebayvet on Oct 11, 2004 09:25 AM ]
posted on October 11, 2004 10:28:40 AM
You would think with the money Christopher Reeve had , the medical care should have been unbelievable and he would have not gotten bad pressure wounds. He will be sadly missed
Death by infection of a pressure wound is very common.This is what also killed my mother. She was only paralyzed from the waist down but was a diabetics also so she healed very slowly. She had a stroke not a heart attack.
posted on October 12, 2004 11:31:52 PM
Thanks McJ - That's great!
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
