The Roll Of Lifetime

A pioneering dance troupe is proving that you can chase your dreams—even in a wheelchair

- Andy Simmons

Since the age of three, Chelsie Hill had dreamed of becoming a dancer. “The only thing that I loved was dance,” she told CBS News. That ambition nearly ended one night in 2010. Hill, then a 17-year-old high school senior in Pacific Grove, California, was in a car accident that put her in the hospital for 51 days and left her paralyzed from the waist down. For most people, that would have dashed any hope of a dancing career. For Hill, it was the beginning. Far from being an obstacle, her wheelchair emboldened her. “I wanted to prove to my community—and to myself—that​ I was still ‘normal,’” she told Teen Vogue. “Whatever normal meant.”

Normal for her meant dancing, so Hill did it in her wheelchair right alongside her nondisabled high school dance team. “Half of my body was taken away from me, and I have to move it with my hands,” Hill told Today. “It definitely took a lot of learning and patience.”