As Chris McCulloh was looking ahead to medical school, a freak accident brought despair.
He slipped while rising from an office desk and fell backward, breaking his neck against a glass table.
“Please don’t let me be paralyzed. I’d rather be dead. I thought my life was over,” McCulloh told ABC’s 20/20 in an episode that aired on Wednesday.
McCulloh, 37, is a third-year surgical resident at Morristown Medical Center. His legs are paralyzed, but he assists at surgeries with help from a $20,000 wheelchair that elevates his 6-foot-3, 200 pound frame into a standing position.
He was among a handful of doctors with disabilities from around the country profiled by 20/20, to promote a new series, The Good Doctor, about an M.D. with autism.
In the segment (around the 2:40 mark in the video), Dr. Eric Lazar says McCulloh has an advantage when it comes to patient consults: Seated in his wheelchair, he confers with patients at eye level, which can be comforting.
“He has a wonderful bedside manner and will be a fantastic pediatric surgeon!!” a former patient, Lynda Huyler Palladino, posted on Morristown Green’s Facebook page.
“Chris uses his wheels like wings and is a great daily role model,” added another reader.
“Patients can see I’ve been in the bed. I know what it’s like,” McCulloh, once an avid skier, told 20/20. He insisted he wants no special treatment from hospital staffers.
Cristina Magbanua confirmed that on Morristown Green’s Facebook page.
“The first day with him being in the O.R. I tried to run around for his gown and gloves, half sheet, etc. but he stopped me from helping him. I guess, the nurse in me kicked in,” she wrote. “But he is really an independent person. After that, I let him do his stuff.”
