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The US Naval Hospital Corona and The Rolling Devils

Prior to World War II, the future for a man or woman with a debilitating spinal cord injury was bleak; with little access to education, treatment and where even the President of the United States was reluctant to be photographed in a wheelchair for fear that such an image would convey weakness and be used against him. During World War I, 80% of those wounded with spinal cord injuries died within a few weeks. With the introduction of “wonder drugs” penicillin and sulfa, and advanced battlefield medicine, sick and wounded men and women who in previous wars would have died where they fell, in makeshift field hospitals or during the long ride home, arrived back in the United States, flooding overwhelmed Army and Navy hospitals. Amongst these were men and women who had lost the use of their legs due to grievous injury, illness and, in the case of some prisoners of war, malnutrition. In a tragic twist, they provided a huge pool of spinal cord wounded which provided physicians with an opportunity to research and develop new treatment techniques. During WWI, 80% of those wounded with spinal cord injuries died within a few weeks, in WWII, those surviving totaled into the thousands. Traditionally, those that did survive were left to lay in beds with little hope for the future and worse, fall victim to deadly infection, and/or painful, scarring surgery’s to relieve pressure sores.

This changed when British physicians, whose country was in the midst of the Battle of Britain, discovered that it was best to get ambulatory patients, including those requiring wheelchairs, out of bed and into strenuous exercise programs. The results were dramatic and in 1944 both the Army Medical Corps and the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery adopted entirely the British Regimen of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation. By 1946, the Navy officially advocated as part of a treatment program for paraplegic patients "Organized and properly supervised sports, such as swimming, bowling, soft ball, shuffleboard, croquet, basketball, and golf," to develop muscle groups not affected by paralysis.

The US Naval Hospital Corona was established in 1942 and was built on the grounds of the former Norconian Resort, located in Norco, California. . The Norconian was a magnificent 700 acre resort complete with a man-made lake, 18 hole golf course, elaborate gardens and walkways, clubhouse complete with dining facilities, hot spring spas, and hotel, chauffeurs quarters and airfield. The Navy employed famed architect Claud Beelman to expand upon the existing buildings and what was created was a permanent three hospital complex specifically designed for the treatment of tuberculosis, polio, rheumatic fever, spinal cord injuries as well as a complete surgical and general medicine facility. By 1945, USNH Corona was the Navy's National Rheumatic Fever Treatment Center and the west coast treatment center for tuberculosis, polio and spinal cord injuries.

Evidence suggests that USNH Corona provided wheelchair bound “athletes” with baseballs and bats, medicine balls, footballs, and other sports equipment and encouraged participation in an increasingly strenuous program of physical exercise and organized games as physical therapy in late 1944. Simultaneously, or perhaps before because the Army adopted the British Regimen prior to the Navy, Cushing General Hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts may also have begun to push their wheel chair bound patients into strenuous physical exercise. This is only a supposition based on the fact the facility had an adequate gym in place and eventually participated in a very early organized wheelchair basketball game between paraplegics and able-bodied men in wheelchairs: Framingham vs. the Boston Celtics.