GRAHAM Shae

Classification
2.5 (IWRF, 08 Jul 2021)

Type of Impairment
Spinal Cord Injuries (paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2019)

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (abc.net.au, 14 May 2019; spire.org.au, 01 Sep 2016; paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2019)

Impairment Details
In 2005, at age 18, she was involved in an accident while travelling in the back seat of her friend's car in Mackay, QLD, Australia. The driver lost control of the car while driving down a residential street and crashed into the side of a house. She sustained a fractured spine that resulted in a C6 incomplete spinal cord injury, a fractured pelvis, a brain injury and a ruptured bladder. She spent eight months in hospital undergoing rehabilitation. "A couple of friends and I had gone to get some DVDs out on a Saturday night. I don't remember the car crash at all, I remember walking into Blockbuster but I don't remember leaving." (abc.net.au, 14 May 2019; spire.org.au, 01 Sep 2016; paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2019)

General
PLAYING MIXED SPORT
In 2019 she became the first female athlete to represent Australia in wheelchair rugby. "When I first started playing, the boys didn't hit me as hard. It didn't take long until the hits started getting hard, and I like that there are big hits, I like that it's rough. It feels really good to be part of a team again. I was so set on making the team that I kind of forgot that I was going to be the first female who was going to represent Australia at an international competition level. [Her male teammates] are very interested in helping me develop as a player. They're always checking in or answering my questions, they're a lovely bunch of humans." (womenshealth.com.au, 30 Aug 2019; abc.net.au, 14 May 2019; Australian Paralympic Team YouTube channel, 17 May 2019)

OCCUPATION
She works as a librarian in Melbourne, VIC, Australia, and as an information services officer at Monash University in Melbourne. "It's a little bit different being on court and smashing into each other, and then going off to the library telling people to keep it down." She is also an ambassador for The Good Village, an Australian Institute of Sport [AIS] education programme that teaches primary school children about health, wellbeing, fitness and nutrition. (vis.org.au, 01 Apr 2021; kidsnews.com.au, 25 Apr 2021)

FURTHER EDUCATION
From 2015 to 2017 she completed a master's degree in information management at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Victoria, Australia. She also holds a graduate certificate in teaching from the Australian Catholic University. (LinkedIn profile, 01 Mar 2021)

In 2019 she became the first female athlete to represent Australia in wheelchair rugby when she competed at the Four Nations Invitational in Birmingham, AL, United States of America. (paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2019)