Scrapbook containing mementoes, photographs and letters pertaining to Ray Werner's service on Guadalcanal in WWII, his resulting injury, his recovery in military hospitals and his time as a member of the wheelchair baseketball team The Jersey Wheelers.
Ray Werner was paralyzed below the waist during his World War II service on Guadalcanal in July of 1942. He was sent to a rehabilitation hospital, where sports were used in his treatment. Werner, a gifted athlete in high school, was a perfect candidate for a new series of rehabilitation programs initiated by the federal government. Wheelchair basketball was the first sport included in these programs, and Werner excelled becoming a pioneer of the sport. He competed in the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960 and continued to help disabled veterans, opening a wheelchair repair shop and installing hand controls in cars for drivers with paraplegia.
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