INSPIRING LIVES
REINVENTION AND INSPIRATION Kort Natterstad ’09 optimistically battles paralysis with the help of Saint John’s friends and family
F By Dave DeLand
our friends were bouncing along on an off-road adventure Feb. 20 at rugged Joshua Tree National Park in Southeastern California when their Jeep hit a rock and rolled. Three of them suffered minor scrapes and bruises. They brushed themselves off and walked away. Kort Natterstad – who went flying out of the back seat – did not. “I remember getting launched. I hit the ground and blacked out. I came to and I was on my stomach,” said Natterstad, a 2009 Saint John’s University graduate. “I’m lying there feeling my body. I can’t feel my stomach. I can’t move anything below my chest. “It was very traumatic. I thought, ‘Just breathe.’ ” Natterstad, 34, had shattered his T5 thoracic vertebrae. Compression on his spinal cord left him paralyzed from the chest down. His medical prognosis: less than a 5 percent chance of regaining the use of his legs. Kort Natterstad (center) is rehabilitating from his injuries with the help of SJU roommate Peter LaNova ’09 (right) and his wife Anne LaNova.
46 SUMMER/FALL 2021
