August 23, 2008 – Paralympic Skiing Medalist Bonnie St. John Visits Shriners Hospital for Children in the Texas Medical Center

Bonnie St. John, a former Shriners Hospital for Children patient who grew up to become a Winter Paralympics ski champion visited patients at Shriners Hospital for Children in the Texas Medical Center Aug. 23.

Bonnie St. John won a silver and two bronze medals for downhill skiing in the 1984 Paralympics games in Innsbruck, Austria. The games are elite sport events for athletes with disabilities, and are held every four years following the Olympic Games.

St. John said her childhood experiences helped her learn to "work through the pain" after her right leg was amputated above the knee when she was five years old. The surgery, performed at the Shriners Hospital in Los Angeles, came about because of a condition called proximal femoral focal disorder which causes a shorter length of the affected leg.

Wearing her medals, St. John – the first African-American ever to win medals in Winter Olympic competition as a ski racer – talked with children about the recent Olympics in Beijing.

Currently she is helping train Paralympics athletes in Colorado Springs as they prepare to compete in this year’s Paralympics competition which takes place Sept. 6 to 18. More than 4,000 athletes are competing and staying in the same facilities used for the Olympics, including the popular Water Cube and Bird’s Nest stadium.

"We need to recruit more Paralympics athletes with cerebral palsy. We don’t have enough competitors and there are more than 100 medals available," St. John said.

Since becoming a medalist, St. John has gone on to excel as a scholar, a mother, and a businesswoman. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in 1986, she won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where she earned an advanced degree in economics. During the Clinton administration she worked in the White House as director of the National Economic Council. As CEO of Courageous Spirit Inc., she regularly delivers motivational speeches around the world and has authored four inspirational books. Last year she was honored at the White House as part of the celebration of Black History Month, and recently she was featured on a Starbucks beverage cup with the following quote in regard to missing out on the gold medal: "I was ahead in the slalom. But in the second run, everyone fell on a dangerous spot. I was beaten by a woman who got up faster than I did. I learned that people fall down, winners get up, and gold medal winners just get up faster.”


Click here to read Bonnie’s blog about her visit!