Son of Brooklyn court clerk paralyzed after motorcycle accident
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Michael LaRose Jr. was on his motorcycle on a four-lane highway, on his way to work in Seattle last July, when a car coming in the opposite direction made a left turn and hit him head on. That day changed his life and his family members’ lives forever.
“He had a motorcycle in college, but I made him get rid of it because it made us all nervous,” said his father Michael LaRose Sr., who is a court clerk in the Brooklyn Supreme Court. “He got another one about a month before the accident, but he was safe about it. He bought Kevlar-lined jeans, the best helmet money could buy — you know, everything he could get to reasonably protect himself.”
All of that protective equipment might have saved his life, but was not enough to prevent a life-altering accident. LaRose sustained brain injuries and broke two vertebrae in his back; he also broke his jaw and femur and his neck was sliced from impact with the car’s windshield.
LaRose was in the ICU for seven weeks and had multiple surgeries before he was finally flown back to New York, where he is currently rehabbing at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. He is paralyzed from the waist down and doctors still cannot determine whether he will eventually be able to walk again.