SCOTT Matt

Type of Impairment
Spinal Cord Injuries (Athlete, 02 May 2016)

Origin of Impairment
Congenital (Athlete, 02 May 2016)

Impairment Details
He was born with spina bifida. (Athlete, 02 May 2016)

General
RECOVERY FROM COMA
In November 2018 he suffered severe septic shock which caused multiple organs, including both of his lungs, to fail while playing for RSB Thuringia Bulls in Germany. After he was admitted to hospital he spent the first week in a coma. In total he spent four months in a German hospital with two weeks in intensive care. "It was about as scary of a situation as I can possibly imagine. When I woke up, the first thing I was thinking was, 'Can I play basketball anymore? How messed up am I?'" With the help of the US wheelchair basketball team's strength and conditioning coach, Katie McClosky, he returned for tryouts in May 2019 for the National Wheelchair Basketball Association [NWBA] training camp in Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America, where he made the team for the 2019 Parapan American Games in Lima, Peru, in August that year. He returned to club wheelchair basketball with RSB Thuringia Bulls in May 2019. (RSB Thuringia Bulls Facebook page, 03 May 2029; teamusa.org, 18 Jul 2019)

VIRTUAL ANGEL CITY GAMES
In 2020 he hosted a virtual wheelchair basketball workshop alongside US women's player Megan Blunk as part of the annual Angel City Games, which were moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "For the virtual Games we're going to prove to the kids that no equipment is necessary. I just want to show the kids what I usually do and how I usually train. We're going to be talking about visualising and shooting, getting your technique together, there's so many different elements of the game that you don't necessarily need the equipment, and we're going to prove that when we have the Games. I have the ability to affect so many kids and people of age and all ability levels and let them take something from this. Whether that's my technique or my training, if I can give them something, it makes it all better for me." (insidethegames.biz, 01 Jul 2020)