Ariel Blair began playing softball at the age of 6 and instantly fell in love with the game. But where she is now, a key piece to UTEP softball’s team, is something far different from where she thought she would end up.
When Blair was 14 and in the midst of her sophomore year at Hanks High School, she contracted a throat infection that would turn into something much worse. First her hands went numb and then her feet went numb.
“There was a short moment where I thought I would never play again.”
After a week in the hospital with multiple CT scans, an MRI, blood work and other work done on her, Blair became paralyzed from the elbows down and the knees down.