Grateful Patient Makes $1 Million Gift To Find Cure

By Dale Heffler

The life of 39-year-old Tim Reynolds changed forever the night of the car accident five years ago. After emergency surgery at University Hospital, Dr. Robert Heary saved Mr. Reynolds' life, but his crushed spinal cord was beyond repair. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Following several more surgeries and months of rehabilitation, Mr. Reynolds was able to return home and then to work in the New York office of Jane Street Capital, a company he co-founded. He remains wheelchair bound today.

To express his gratitude to Dr. Heary, director of the Spine Center of New Jersey at New Jersey Medical School, and to help Dr. Heary and his colleagues find a cure for this debilitating injury, the Reynolds family, Mr. Reynolds, his wife Caroline, nine-year-old Max, eight-year-old Emily and five-year-old Chloe, donated $1 million to establish the Tim Reynolds Family Spinal Cord Injury Center.

"Most people don't realize how many suffer from spinal cord injuries," he said. "In the U.S. alone there are approximately 250,000 of us. It's time we found a cure so that we could walk again."

The proposed spinal cord research center will have two components. The Tim Reynolds Family Spinal Cord Injury Center will consist of basic science experiments looking to improve outcomes following experimental spinal cord injuries. The Spinal BiomechanicsLaboratory will test an assortment of spine stabilizing methods to try to improve them.

"Spinal cord injuries are so debilitating; it would be so exciting for somebody like me to be able to walk again," Mr. Reynolds said. "I have a tremendous amount of faith in Dr. Heary's ability to find a cure and I know that my gift to New Jersey Medical School for this purpose will be money well spent in that effort."

For more information about how you can support the Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, contact Chris Sickels, director of development, the Foundation of UMDNJ, at (973) 972-4265 or at sickelce@umdnj.edu.