Below is the letter that Chris penned to President Obama. Chris attended the rally at CMU in Pittsburgh on July 6th and was inspired to share his story and his journey.  Chris will embark on his fourth trip to Panama for stem cell therapy and intense physical therapy.


Mr. President,

My name is Chris Niles. I have been married for over ten years to my wife Jennifer and have two wonderful boys Christopher 12 and Braden 9.  We live in western Pennsylvania in the small town of New Castle about 54 miles north of Pittsburgh. 



I have never paid much attention to politics until the 2008 Presidential election.  I began to follow you online and on TV throughout your 2008 run for the White House.  I find you to be a very inspirational and motivational President and speaker.  You are an amazing father and a terrific role model.  You have accomplished so much this term and I feel a lot of these accomplishments go unnoticed.   When I hear people say, "Obama has not done anything," I kind of just laugh and realize that they truly do not know this President’s long list of accomplishments and probably get their information  from the opposition.  The opposition is a party who constantly and continuously wastes time with silly partisan politics like trying to prove your presidency illegitimate. They waste time on silly cockamamie theories such as the ‘birther issue’. An opposition whose only goal is obstruction, with an unwillingness to cooperate even while knowing this adversely affects the American people.  I truly believe  history will tell a different story of you Mr. President, contrary to what your critics believe, and I believe the best is yet to come in your next term!   I supported you then and continue to support you in the 2012 election.  On July 6, I traveled to the Carnegie Mellon  campus in Pittsburgh to hear you speak.  Listening to you in person and experiencing the whole event encouraged me to send you this letter.



One of your accomplishments that did not immediately impact me directly occurred in March of 2009 when you signed the law lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  This law became a good life lesson for me that not every bill passed or law written is going to make every voter happy, or is good politics or even has or will have an impact on us as an individual directly. Often actions of our government go unnoticed until they effect us individually.



Here is my story.  On  March 3, 2011 I dropped my boys off at Laurel elementary school here in New Castle, PA.  That day happened to be my day off and I decided to get some work done around the house.  I worked for 11 1/2 years as Cook supervisor at the Lawrence County correctional facility. I stopped by a cousin’s house briefly before going home to do some finishing work  in the basement of my home.  We had just built our dream home in 2010.   I took some construction debris from the basement out to a burn pile in my backyard.   To get the fire going I then grabbed my chainsaw and began to cut some dead trees in the end wood line of the yard. Little did I know, in a few moments my life was going to change forever.  I cut up a few trees and had the fire going, but there was one broken storm damaged tree that I had been putting off disposing of since we built the house.  My wife and I repeatedly talked about taking down that tree for fear that the boys would get hurt playing or climbing around this tree. That tree was just an accident waiting to happen, literally.  I decided today was the day I would finally remove this dangerous tree.  I started to cut the tree and quickly noticed everything started crashing and collapsing around me. I dropped the saw and got away from the top half of the tree as it began to fall. I just turned around and ran.  As I ran, the 20-foot trunk followed the path I ran and hit me in the back, breaking my back and cutting 50 percent of my spinal cord.  Here I am at 11 o'clock in the morning, alone and pinned under that tree, paralyzed from my mid chest down from the blow to my back.  We live in a rural area so the neighbors are not real close.  We also have a long driveway and our house is about 500ft from the road.  I yelled  for help for hours as much as I could before blacking out several times. I was in and out of consiousness all day. Several times I started to panic but quickly gathered my wits and knew I had to just stay alive until my wife got home from work.  I remember talking to my kids as if they were there, telling them I love them both so much and how they mean everything in the world to me.  How I would love to see their faces one more time!  I lay trapped paralyzed on my side with my cheek in the dirt.  Not knowing if I was going to make it through the day, I grabbed a nearby twig and was writing  a message to my boys in the dirt.  I was trying to write "I'll always be with you, and I love you." My boys kept me alive that day.  I kept seeing their faces over and over again in my mind. Luckily we all had a 3 o'clock dentist appointment that we obviously missed, and because we did not make the appointment the dentist's office called my wife.  Knowing that it was out of character for me to miss an appointment my wife sent people out looking for me because nobody had heard from me all day. I was found shortly after 3:00pm and was lifeflighted to UPMC Pittsburgh Presbyterian Hospital where I had emergency reconstructive surgery on my back. The finality of this event had left me with this diagnosis; I am a T-6 ASIA A Complete.  My doctors told me I will never walk again.  That night in that dark room with my family around me I was told that several times that I would never again walk.   I kind of smirked inside and in my mind just thought I'm happy to be alive and I'll deal with it.  Endless amounts of rehabilitation followed and continue today.  I have been battling back every day to regain any ability I lost.



I am preparing right now for my fourth trip to Panama City, Panama for adult and umbilical cord stem cell treatments at The Stem Cell Institute.   I have been receiving these treatments throughout the past 16 months and they have been helping me significantly.  Adult and Umbilical stem cell treatments have been helping spur some movement in my lower body and have helped with some muscle regeneration. Although these treatments have been therapeutic and somewhat beneficial, I fear they are not the sole answer to curing paralysis and repairing the spinal cord.  I believe the answer is in embryonic stem cell lines. 



Never before have I understood the notion that the future of America will come from investments in education, science, and research.  Contrary to what the opposition believes, even in the face of deficits, we must NEVER stop investing in fields such as medicine, science, and education in general.  This is not just for my sake, but for the millions in this country suffering with all sorts of diseases and conditions that we have the capability to cure through continued research.  Will a reelected Obama administration continue funding for this research? Will a Romney administration end the funding and attempt to overturn this research just as they vow to overturn and end almost everything else passed by your administration?  I believe these past three and a half years have just scratched the surface of what your administration can achieve.  I supported the healthcare reform and I think it’s just the beginning of improvements that can be achieved in the field of medicine and healthcare.  I encourage you to continue to (as your campaign slogan says) move FORWARD.  I also ask that you continue to push for more research in stem cell treatments because I feel they have such great potential to help people who have illnesses and conditions such as mine.



Sincerely,



Chris Niles