Park Crossing Grad Finally Walks Across the Stage

Graduation Day is a day most high school students look forward to. All of their hard work has lead to this, the day their friends and family can watch them walk across the stage and receive their diploma. Some students decide to bring more than just immediate family.

“My mom, my dad, my great aunt, who never goes anywhere! Like she hasn’t been out of the house in I don’t know how long, she’s here. Cousins, aunties, um, doctors, my therapist,” lists graduating Senior Montaues Bell. He thought he would invite everyone he could to a day he, at one time, thought might not happen.

Bell was in a car accident his junior year that broke a vertebra in his spine and left him in a wheelchair. After multiple surgeries and hundreds of hours in physical therapy, Bell was ready to complete two of his main goals: receive his high school diploma and walk across the stage.

“It’s just a sense of accomplishment, that I came from being paralyzed to walking across the stage,” Bell says with a smile. He crossed the stage with help from a walker, as cheers erupted from the stands. It is a walk he was not sure he could accomplish after his accident.

Bell’s next goal is to attend college at the University of Alabama, Birmingham and study physical therapy. He hopes to help people achieve the same goals he once thought were impossible.

“Due to my situation, like, I’ve been around it already so much,” Bell says.” And I just really like the feeling when I go into a therapy session, a successful therapy session. And like I really obtain a sense of normalcy. ”

After the Park Crossing Alumni move their tassels to the left side of their caps, Bell leads them back out of the Alabama State University Acadome Arena. He is silent as they all cheer and clap, taking in what some would see as a miracle. A young man, once paralyzed, who never let anything stop him.

“I would say, keep faith. Throughout, throughout everything and know that things can only get better… Just to really keep pushing it, that’s all I told myself.”

Bell and his classmates were the first class to graduate from Park Crossing High School.