As Alex McEwan took his first few steps across the stage at his high school graduation, the crowd immediately leapt to their feet to applaud him in a standing ovation.
While there’s nothing unusual about a student walking across the stage to receive a diploma, in this particular case, the walk itself was an accomplishment worth celebrating.
The 17-year-old graduate from Bowness High School in Calgary has been paralyzed from the chest down after a tobogganing accident nearly three years ago. He has been in a wheelchair ever since.
But on Monday, Alex surprised his teachers and classmates by walking across the stage on his own two feet during his graduation ceremony thanks to some innovative technology.
Strapped into a wearable robotic device called an exoskeleton, which allows him to move by shifting weight, the determined teenager was able to operate both of his legs as he moved across the stage.
The emotional moment, captured on video, shows the school’s principal wiping away tears as she greets Alex in the middle of the stage while the audience cheers below.
“It was an amazing feeling to be able to actually walk the stage with my fellow graduates,” Alex told CTV Calgary after the ceremony. “It was unreal. I will never get a feeling like that again in my life.”
Alex’s parents said they couldn’t have been more proud of their son that night.
“I think everyone took something out of it,” Stella McEwan said. “It wasn't just a family moment it was everyone's moment.”
“It was all our hopes and dreams for him to graduate and walk the stage,” John McEwan added.
With his graduation ceremony complete, Alex has no plans of slowing down. The teenager will attend the University of Lethbridge in the fall to study history with the hope of one day becoming a high school social studies teacher.
“I did not let this stop me,” he said. “I needed to make sure that no matter what happened to me, I was going to live the life I wanted to live. I was going to live my best life.”
With a report from CTV Calgary’s Ina Sidhu
