When a rare neurological disorder paralyzed a 13-year-old girl from Oregon from the waist down, she found the strength within to teach herself how to dribble a basketball in a wheelchair and reach for her gold medal dreams. Lindsay Zurbrugg, now 25, will compete in her second Paralympic Games in Paris this month. Zurbrugg joined Kelvin Washington on "LA Times Today" ahead of the games. 

What You Need To Know

  • The 2024 Paralympic Games kick off Wednesday in Paris

  • While playing for the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater and Alabama, Lindsay Zurbrugg made the U.S. national wheelchair basketball team several times

  • Zurbrugg was paralyzed by a rare neurological disorder when she was 13 years old

Zurbrugg shared how she played sports as an able-bodied child, falling in love with basketball while shooting hoops at her family's home outside Portland, Oregon. But, an accident at a basketball camp when she was 13 altered her life forever. 

"I went to my first ever able-bodied basketball camp, and it was probably day three or four of the camp... and we're doing so much basketball that all of us are very sore. So what we end up doing is a coach says, 'Hey, let's do some yoga and just stretch out and get our bodies loose for the next session,'" Zurbrugg recalled. "Then we came to the move downward dog, and I felt a sharp pain go up through my back. And then slowly over the next 36 hours, I gradually became more and more paralyzed."

Zurbrugg discovered that she had a tethered cord, a rare neurological disorder that developed before she was born. She has been in a wheelchair ever since. Soon after her diagnosis, Zurbrugg found a way to keep her love of basketball alive. 

"When I was in the hospital rehabbing from my newfound paralysis, my recreational nurse was actually the head coach of a juniors wheelchair basketball team in Portland. And she said, 'Hey, I heard you play basketball, come out and play with us.' And I was kind of hesitant at first because I've never heard of wheelchair basketball. None of my family had. My mom pushed me to try it, and the second I got into a basketball chair, I started running into people and I felt fast and agile again. I fell in love with it. And from there, I knew I wanted to be a basketball player," she shared. 

While playing for the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater and Alabama, Zurbrugg made the U.S. national wheelchair basketball team several times. She and her teammates won a bronze medal at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo. She shared her hopes for Paris. 

"I'm excited to have an experience like a real Paralympics. Like I had a real Paralympics, but with actual fans, and to feel the energy and hype of the crowd," she said. "We have a new girl on the team and she's never experienced any of this, so I'm excited to see her excitement and just to experience everything with those bright eyes. I think a lot of us are going to have that, like bright-eyed and bushy-tailed look of, this is so amazing. This is such a different experience from Tokyo.”

The 2024 Paralympic Games kick off in Paris on Aug. 28. 

Watch the full interview above.

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