"Let me go. »
It was the first words that Christopher Reeve managed to communicate after the incident that changed his life.
The man that millions of people knew how Superman had just woken up in intensive care.
He no longer felt his body from his neck down.
He was only breathing thanks to a mechanical fan.
She was 42.
A few days before he was participating in an equestrian race in Virginia, one of the sports he loved most.
During a jump, his horse suddenly stopped.
Christopher was swinging forward and fell in his head.
The fracture of the cervical vertebrae caused him a very serious injury of the spinal cord.
When he opened his eyes in the hospital, he thought his life was over.
He asked the doctors to turn off the respirator.
That's when his wife entered the room, Dana.
He didn't promise miracles.
He didn't tell him everything would come back like before.
He took his face in his hands and gave a phrase that would change the rest of their history.
"You are still you. And I love you. »
Christopher burst to cry.
Later he would have told that he was at that time deciding to continue to live.
From that day on, a completely different battle began.
Dana learned to manage the respirator, tracheotomy, infections and all the daily difficulties related to the new condition of her husband.
But, above all, he did not allow disability to erase his identity.
Christopher did the same.
In 1996 she appeared at the Oscars ceremony.
When he entered the stage with his wheelchair, the whole theater stood up to applaud him.
He did not speak of his suffering.
He chose instead to ask for more attention for people with disabilities and for research on spinal cord injuries.
Together with Dana, he gave new impetus to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, supporting scientific research and assistance to paralysis patients.
In 2000 there was also a small, extraordinary conquest.
Christopher managed to move a finger of his hand.
For him and for Dana it was proof that research deserved to continue.
Christopher Reeve died on October 10, 2004, at age 52, due to complications from an infection.
Dana remained the head of the foundation and continued the work begun together.
But fate kept her another hard test.
A few months later she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
He never smoked.
He died on 6 March 2006, only 44 years old.
Their son Will was only 13 years old.
Today he is the one who carries out the inheritance of his parents through the foundation that bears their names.
Christopher Reeve never walked back.
But he turned a personal tragedy into a mission capable of changing the lives of thousands of people.
And it all started with six simple words spoken in a hospital room.
"You are still you. And I love you. »
Sometimes it's not the cure to save a person.
It's someone who remembers who she is, just when she stopped believing it.