By Laura Farmer
As the clock neared the end of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s East Coast Varsity Conference Championship game, Rohan speed-wheeled himself into position near his team’s basket. A teammate passed him the ball.
With just a few seconds remaining in the game, Rohan aimed, threw and—swoosh! He sunk the ball right as the buzzer went off. Cheers erupted from the crowd and from his teammates on the Bennett Blazers, Kennedy Krieger Institute’s adaptive sports team.
It was just one of many defining moments Rohan has experienced in his nearly 15-year journey with Kennedy Krieger following a traumatic brain injury at 5 years old that left him unable to talk or walk—at least for a time.
His parents, Anjali and Rajesh, embarked on a nationwide search for just the right rehabilitative program for their son. Impressed by the Institute’s integrated approach, they moved from Connecticut to Baltimore so Rohan could receive daily physical, occupational and speech therapies, as well as academic instruction, at the Institute’s Specialized Transition Program, a neurorehabilitative day hospital.
At Kennedy Krieger, “He made progress by leaps and bounds,” Anjali says. “When we first arrived, he could only sit in a wheelchair and make little movements. Within a month, he was learning how to walk using crutches. He started to say a few words, and words became sentences. His progress has been tremendous.”
Rohan scores the final basket in the championship game of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s East Coast Varsity Conference Championship, held in Baltimore in February of 2024. Rohan's team, Kennedy Krieger Institute's Bennett Blazers adaptive sports team, won against the New York Rolling Fury, 59-35, to clinch the title. Credit: Chad Landers
The Kennedy Krieger staff, she adds, has become like family, especially Rohan’s Bennett Blazers coaches, Gwena and Gerry Herman; his educational specialist, Ali Adler; and Dr. Stacy Suskauer, the Institute’s vice president of pediatric rehabilitation and co-director of the Institute’s Center for Brain Injury Recovery.
He made progress by leaps and bounds.” – Anjali
Today, Rohan is an engaging 20-year-old whose many interests include basketball, swimming, math, music and participating in podcasts. He’s enrolled in Maryland’s Division of Rehabilitative Services, a job training program that helps him try out different career paths. Recently, he began “paying it forward” by volunteering at the Specialized Transition Program and tutoring students with disabilities at his former middle school.
“I try to ‘push’ the students as much as possible so they can become 100% independent in their everyday work,” he explains. “Having been through the special education process myself, it has helped me get a better perspective about how to help children with mild to severe disabilities. They can do everything their peers can do. The only thing is that they might need a little more help.”
