Meet Ray Ferguson, a retired service member who served on both U.S. and Canadian soil and most recently suffered a stroke causing some paralysis to his right side. “Boom! The airplane hit [the ground], and I was going right into the fireball,” Ray Ferguson said, recalling a time he had to eject himself from his fighter jet.
Talking to him about his recovery, he couldn’t help but tell some stories from his time as a fighter pilot. “…and he had fallen off his skidoo,” Ray joked as he told a story about scaring a friend by flying low to the water. Ferguson who was once Canada’s equivalent to top gun pilots here in the States is learning to take things much slower after his stroke.
“It’s been quite a challenge to go from 500 miles per hour at 50 feet to two miles per hour in a wheelchair,” he said.
“I said Ray, don’t you give up Papa,” Ray’s stepdaughter Becky Brown said. “You weren’t born a loser pilot, you were born a fighter pilot, so you have to keep fighting.”
And fighting is just what he did, spending 31 days at the Encompass Rehabilitation Center in Round Rock, walking on his own after 31 days, something other doctors said wouldn’t be possible.
“Everything about being there is the reason Ray can walk today,” said Ray’s wife, Louise Ferguson. “They accomplished what we couldn’t dream of.”
Visit KWTX to learn more, https://www.kwtx.com/2023/05/05/32-year-fighter-pilot-is-back-his-feet-after-suffering-stroke-paralysis/.
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