On January 28, 1958: Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella, a three-time National League MVP, suffers a broken neck and is paralyzed after an automobile accident near his home in Glen Cove, Long Island. Campanella undergoes a four-hour-and-15-minute operation to repair two fractured vertebrae in his neck. Returning alone from a TV appearance in New York, Campanella’s rented car skids on the icy road, turns over on its right side and crashes into a telephone pole at 3:30 in the morning. Campanella is pinned in the wrecked car for 30 minutes before the doors can be pried open. While doctors are hopeful the paralysis will eventually disappear, it doesn’t. Campanella will never walk again.
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