The day before Meredith Koch's birthday in May of 2015, she was crushed by an 850-pound piano. She turned twenty-five years old on the operating table.
Meredith made a choice in Intensive Care to fight, to live the best life she could with whatever her body was able to do. She was terrified of the stereotypes surrounding disability, but she learned through adaptive sports that paralysis wouldn’t change who she is, just how she does things. “I was going to live an adaptively-abled life,” says Meredith. “I would figure out ways of doing what I was passionate about.”
Meredith’s experience in Biology, Biomechanical Engineering, and emergency medical services give her thorough insight into what her body is capable of. Her life dreams are the same as they were before the accident – with some modifications. She now works as a Clinical Specialist in Cardiac Disease Management Systems in Boston hospitals and is an adaptively-abled advocate, leading lectures in everything from emergency care of spinal injuries, biomedical engineering of medical devices, inclusive design, and the healing capacity of adaptive sports. She is a skier and swimmer, and has decided to compete in swimming in the 2020 Paralympics.
Meredith believes that building an inclusive environment requires more than a shift in architecture, it requires a shift in public attitudes from disability to adaptive-ability. She hopes that by sharing her story, people will see individuals with disabilities with new eyes and realize how rich the world can become when we focus on kindness, inclusion, and strength.
An accident capsized Meredith’s life. Her TEDx Newport talk, "Why You Should Include the Adaptively-Abled," answers her question, “Once you choose to set sail again, how do you change your course and stay true to who you are?”
