Deja Young Craddock Is Unstoppable DYC IS U

FOR THIS PARALYMPIAN, SOME THINGS ARE WORTH MORE THAN GOLD

- KERSTEN VASEY

DEJA YOUNG-CRADDOCK’S FIRST MEMORY REMAINS SHARP: She stands in front of a jury of strangers and unties the strap of her black and-white sundress to reveal her right shoulder. She is 4 years old.

Deja is there with her parents, Delora and Don, who have filed a lawsuit against the hospital where she was born. In the first year of Deja’s life, her parents had wondered why their new baby would wince at the slightest pressure on her shoulder, why her skin would become mottled with purples and blues all the way down to her forearm, why she couldn’t learn to crawl.

Eventually, doctors diagnosed Deja with an injury to her brachial plexus, a network of nerves that control movement and sensation in the shoulder, arm, and hand—the result of a serious birth complication called shoulder dystocia.

The complication can sometimes occur when a small-statured mother gives birth to an above-average-size infant during vaginal delivery, which was likely the case with Deja. But the hospital where Deja was born never communicated the incident to the family. The family sued not only the hospital but also the doctor who delivered her, and the case was eventually settled out of court.

Deja underwent three surgeries before the age of 6 to increase mobility and decrease pain: a muscle transplant, a nerve transplant, and a plastic surgery to ensure that her right arm could rest in a comfortable position. Even in her postoperative casts, which made her look like a miniature Statue of Liberty for months at a time, “she always found a way around everything,” says Delora. “Her cast was simply a tool to bounce off things. And she was never without a smile.”