MIAMI (WSVN) - A single father of two who was robbed of the use of his legs has been gifted with a brand new wheelchair.
Quentin Spivey is a single father raising two teenagers, and he’s been doing it for the last 10 years from a wheelchair. However, he is now getting a badly needed upgrade.
“The old chair was falling apart. It was barely hanging on. The new chair is going to be a lot better,” he said.
Spivey was the victim in a love triangle. Eric Johnson, the ex-husband of a woman he was seeing confronted Spivey at a Southwest Miami-Dade gas station in October of 2006 and shot him three times in the stomach. Spivey’s daughter and son were in the vehicle at the time. Spivey was left paralyzed from the encounter.
Johnson is now serving a 10-year sentence.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office was working with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis & the Buoniconti Fund when Spivey’s case came up.
“When we were here talking about other partnerships and things we needed to do, he said, ‘How can I help?’ said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. “We mentioned Quentin and lo and behold, he gets with Darrell and Angel. Look at him smiling today, he’s going to have a quality of life he didn’t have before today.”
A former drag racer, Darrell Gwynn turned to the Doctors Medical Rentals Corporation in Doral. If they were relying on an insurance company, Angel Pardo said, they would have waited nearly two years. Instead, it took just a few weeks.
“Darrell called me, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago and said, ‘Can you get him a chair?’ He drove down a day later, we measured him, we ordered the chair and it’s been waiting for him,” Angel Pardo, the president of the Doctors Medical Rentals Corporation.
“We have partnered together to raise money and awareness for spinal cord injury research as well as to help people with quality of life issues and Darrell has a program where he gives away wheelchairs,” said Marc Buoniconti.
Spivey moved out of South Florida a few months ago. However, the wheelchair is a welcome addition to his life.
“It’s just a great day when you can change someone’s life like this in a room full of great people,” said Darrell Gwynn.
“It was a good outcome. I just want to say thank you,” Spivey said.
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