HAXTON Blake

Classification
PR1 (worldrowing.com, 10 May 2021)

Type of Impairment
Limb deficiency (blakehaxton.com, 21 Apr 2019)

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (teamusa.org, 20 Apr 2016)

Impairment Details
In March 2009 he was a senior captain of the Upper Arlington High School rowing team when a pain in his calf sent him to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with a rare case of fast-moving necrotising fasciitis, a bacterial strain that eats away at the flesh. Within a few days he was on life support after multi-organ failure, and doctors were forced to amputate both his legs above the knee due to the severity and progression of the infection. (blakehaxton.com, 21 Apr 2019; dispatch.com, 06 Jul 2012; thelantern.com, 23 Jan 2010; archive.lancastereaglegazette.com, 10 Jan 2010)

General
OCCUPATION
He works as a research analyst at Diamond Hill Capital Management, an investment management company based in Columbus, OH, United States of America. He specialises in airlines, energy and transportation. "We divide up the market of publicly traded stocks by industry. A lot of people don't get to say they like any job they have. I have two jobs I really like, rowing and investing, and I get to do both of them every day. What could be better than that?" (Facebook profile, 18 Apr 2021; 614now.com, 21 Jan 2020; LinkedIn profile, 2020)

FURTHER EDUCATION
After completing a bachelor's degree in finance in 2013, he completed a doctor of law degree at Ohio State University in 2016. (LinkedIn profile, 2020; blakehaxton.com, 21 Apr 2019)

RETURNING TO ROWING
He competed in able-bodied rowing at high school, but says he struggled to find the motivation to return to the sport following the amputation of his legs. He also admits to finding Para rowing more difficult than he anticipated when he first tried the sport. "It really took me three or four years to even entertain the idea of rowing again, and even then, I wasn't thinking of getting back in the boat. It was slow. It felt confining. When you're sitting there with a strap around your waist and another one around your chest and your brain still remembers how to take full body strokes but you just can't, you have to rewire yourself a little bit. If there is a moral to my story, it's that I've had great people around to help me get to where I am. I've had a lot of good and amazing people around me every step of the way, my friends, my family, coaches, teammates, doctors and nurses. And it has been an amazing thing to see." (usrowing.org, 24 Aug 2014; sports.yahoo.com, 10 Jul 2012)