Oliver’s journey has been a bumpy ride ever since the tragic year of 2005 when he was just 22 years old and became a victim of a life-changing accident when he fell off from a roof trying to catch hold of a football. This horrific fall left him with a spinal cord injury and paralyzed from the chest down.
With this sudden upside down of life presented to him with an injury where the only news he got from doctors was to pray for a miracle for the rest of his life and a dependent life for the years to come. A ray of light and hope happened to shine in the year of 2009 when a social worker asked him to take a chance on homeless rehab center run by Paraplegic Foundation which eventually helped him to rebuild his life.
During his stay, he had an encounter with Nina Foundation and three months later, he attended an advanced wheelchair skills workshop orchestrated by Mr. Rajiv Virat from ISIC, Delhi wherein he showered light on topics on how a wheelchair can be used as an advantage in leading the rest of life and not an obstruction. After having this realized, he got himself a laptop and learned the basics of public relations which landed him in a role where he used to write press releases for the next two years.
There was no stopping Oliver and in the year of 2012 he bought a car, modified it to hand controls and got himself totally self-dependent for his commute in the city. This major boost gave an incline in career where he was able to bag a job in the Royal Bank Of Scotland as a mortgage operations executive and worked for next two years is the consistent performer receiving the highest rating in the department.
In 2015, he shifted his focus on his physical health more and learned to swim subsequently winning gold and bronze medals at various State and national tournaments. Nowadays, he has driven a great interest in Wheelchair basketball and wheelchair badminton from he recalls of days when he used to be football enthusiast and wouldn’t stop playing for those 18 years of life which are just fresh in his dear memories.
2017 added another feather to the list of bounties he was receiving all this while by enrolling in the graduate diploma of arts – psychology program at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. As a volunteer and an active member at the Nina Foundation, for the first time participated in 2010 Mumbai Marathon with the NF contingent and experienced the feeling of helping a person undergoing rehab with SCI and bound with physical and financial barriers.
Since then, he participates in every marathon where Nina Foundation participates in and is always present to encourage new members and helping them see an array of opportunities laying for them to be explored.
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