Quadriplegic aims for gold in London Paralympics - Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

Cassie Mitchell, a quadriplegic, leaves on Thursday for the 2012 London Paralympics. She'll represent her native Oklahoma and her adopted city of Atlanta. Mitchell will participate in three events in London.

The 31-year-old discovered all kinds of wheelchair sports when she moved to Atlanta and found Shepherd Center.
   
Mitchell works full-time at Georgia Tech. She trains six days a week, and sprints for about 10 miles around the track, each time.
 
If you observe Mitchell practicing, the first thing you will notice is that she's fast.

"It's very rhythmic, It's very de-stressing to be out here. Even though it's going around in circles, I don't know, it's something that's really peaceful about it," said Mitchell.

As a kid growing up in tiny Warner, Oklahoma, she rode horses, was a gymnast, and was running as soon as she could walk.

"I ran on our country farm. I ran on the gravel road. I mean even when I was five, I was running like a couple of miles with my dad," said Mitchell.

In high school, she landed a track scholarship to Oklahoma State University. But before she could go, the bottom dropped out.

"I had allergic reaction and I developed a disease called Devics Neuromyelitis Optica, where my body attacks my spinal cord and essentially left a hole in my spinal cord," said Mitchell.

She woke one morning paralyzed from the chest down. So she changed gears, and started over.

"My desire to want to be athletic, to run, even if it's in this chair, it just never went away," Mitchell said.

At Georgia Tech, she earned a Ph.D in biomedical engineering, becoming a researcher looking for cures for diseases like ALS.
        
At Shepherd Center, she discovered she could still play sports, even rough and tumble ones like wheelchair rugby. In 2006, her disease flared up again, this time affecting her arms, wrists and hands.
 
"It's been tough to be stricken not only once, but twice. You know you think you've adapted one way, in a wheelchair, and then it's like lightening struck again and you know all of a sudden my arms are impaired and wrists," said Mitchell.

She has pushed through the hardship, earning a spot the USA Track and Field Team. She will compete the 100 and 200 meter sprint, and the discus.

How she does she do it?  Because she can.

"And I think everyone is given this natural God given ability to overcome. You have to be able to find it and really hold onto it and apply it," said Mitchell.

Mitchell says she's ready, and excited to represent Team USA. She says every bank and business is in Warner, Oklahoma has posted a "Go Cassie!" sign. She's one of three athletes representing Shepherd Center in the Paralymics. If you'd like to read more about Cassie Mitchell, click here!