Paralyzed, Not Powerless: A Journey of Faith, Resilience, and Fortitude

The moment the retired doctor’s head crashed into the net, snapped backwards and sent him flying through the air, he knew he had suffered a spinal cord injury.

It was the first time Dr. Bill Silvers, then 72, ever had played pickleball and just 10 minutes into his first game.

He felt no pain, but time seemed to stop as Silvers hovered for an eerily long moment in the air.

His life was about to change, and he knew it. He had fractured his C4 vertebra.

Yet, even as he lay on the ground, Silvers remained a physician. “Call 911. I have a spinal cord injury,” he calmly instructed. He then directed paramedics to take him not to the nearest hospital, but to UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, where he had practiced and taught for decades. It was a place where he had not only cared for patients but had sown the seeds of a lasting moral legacy.

Embedded Courage

Before the freak pickleball accident, Silvers was partially retired, had met his partner of five years, Sara Jo Fischer, and the two were enjoying an active life full of travel and sports.

Dr. Bill Silvers holds a photo of his parents, Helena and Leo Silvers, Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust. The drawing on the right commemorates their marriage. Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon for UCHealth.

“I was a huge skier, cyclist and tennis player. A month and a half before the accident, I was trying out my new knee on black diamond slopes in Vail,” Silvers said.

“With all of the risky things I’ve done in my life — from skiing to driving too fast — I may have deserved to have an accident. But pickleball was not my idea of a high-risk activity,” he said.

To cope with the challenging aftermath of his accident, Silvers has drawn inspiration from his parents and his deep Jewish faith.

“Having this kind of life-changing injury is not fun or easy at all. But it’s nothing like the experiences of the Holocaust. I look at my life through the lens of my parents’ experiences. That gives me perspective to address this situation as positively as I can,” Silvers said.

Born to Polish Holocaust survivors who escaped extermination, endured Auschwitz and Dachau, and reunited miraculously after separate death marches, his very existence is a testament to human perseverance. His parents met again in 1945 at a Red Cross shelter in Prague and immigrated to the United States to ensure their child would be born on free soil.

Their courage was embedded into his soul. His father had once been slated to start medical school the very day the Nazis invaded Poland. That dream was crushed by genocide but resurrected in Bill, who later became a doctor.

Dr. Bill Silvers works every day to recover after his spinal cord injury. Here he does the hard work of rising from sitting to standing. Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon, for UCHealth.

Of course, there are moments of frustration and deep loss, but Silvers is determined to be a “mensch,” a Yiddish word that means being a person of integrity, dignity and morality.

“God must have had a plan for me,’’ Silvers said.

As he fights to regain as much movement as possible and works to learn lessons from his accident, Silvers focuses relentlessly on cherishing the beauty of life, serving people and encouraging others to do the same.

“As long as you’re breathing, you have the chance to do good in your life. As long as you’re alive, you have the potential to grow, to help others and to be the best person you can be,” Silvers said in his deep, soothing voice.

“I have bad moments,” he said. “But I never have bad days.”

Despite the shock of paralysis, Silvers refused to despair. Instead, he found solace in his Jewish faith and cultural identity. “This isn’t Auschwitz,” he would remind himself. The pain was real, but it was not annihilation. The paralysis was formidable, but his soul was unshaken.

Finding Safe Hands and Sacred Connections

Providence met preparation in the ER. The doctor holding Silvers’ head was Dr. Jeff Druck, a friend and colleague from the Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Druck had collaborated with Silvers on the Holocaust Genocide Contemporary Bioethics Program—an initiative that teaches all health science students about medical complicity during the Holocaust.

“From the moment my head was in his hands, I knew I was safe,” Silvers recalled with tears. The injury, while devastating, was mercifully a severe bruise rather than a complete severance. There was hope.

Within 24 hours, Silvers could wiggle his toes and shrug his shoulders. The glimmers of recovery began.

The Ethical Will: A Jewish Tradition of Wisdom

As he waited for life-saving surgery—delayed by dangerous blood clots—Silvers turned to spiritual legacy. He had begun crafting an “ethical will,” a Jewish tradition where values, not valuables, are bequeathed to the next generation.

He completed it with help from advisor Nancy Sharp. In it, he wrote: “To those whose lives I may have touched: I have tried to be a mensch and live a meaningful life as a dedicated physician, a son of Holocaust survivors, and a committed Jew,” Silvers wrote. “I have been given many blessings, some I didn’t appreciate at the time, but given a long life, I do now.

“I have suffered, struggled and persevered. I have loved, lost, and short of having no children, beyond an adopted daughter, I have tried my best to lead a life of integrity and to leave a legacy, to help those I could and to make the world a better place,” he said.

Silvers went on to write about how his parents’ courage and their remarkable survival during World War II motivated him.

Bashert: A Love That Sustains

Throughout this ordeal, Silvers was not alone. His partner, Sara Jo Fischer, had been described as his “bashert”—a soulmate destined by God. Their bond was fortified through previous health challenges and shared values.

Before his accident, Dr. Bill Silvers and his partner, Sara Jo Fischer, enjoyed adventures around the world, including a trip to Machu Pichu.

After the accident, Fischer became his unwavering advocate and caregiver. With a background in yoga and healing, she called upon her experience and soul to support him through dark and uncertain days. “My skill set and my soul have grown,” she said.

SuperMenschMan is Born

During his grueling recovery, Fischer began updating loved ones via CaringBridge. One message, written during a battle with sepsis, introduced a new moniker: SuperMenschMan. It stuck. Friends made green T-shirts and bracelets—his favorite color—emblazoned with the words “Be a Mensch.”

Dr. Bill Silvers was unable to move anything below his chin after he suffered a spinal cord injury while playing pickleball. He has been working to regain movement. He can fist-bump with visitors. And friends made him T-shirts and bracelets highlighting his determination to live a good life and be a “mensch.” Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon for UCHealth.

The superhero symbol captured not just his resilience, but his relentless pursuit of goodness.

Relearning Life, Renewing Purpose

Silvers spent months at Craig Hospital, one of the nation’s premier spinal cord rehabilitation centers. There, he learned to use a motorized wheelchair, practiced physical therapy daily, and eventually stood and took steps again.

Dr. Jeff Berliner, a Jewish rehabilitation specialist at Craig, called Silvers “remarkably positive, insightful and kind.” Their discussions often touched on Holocaust memory, healing, and spiritual meaning.

Silvers marveled at the compassion of his caregivers. “What I learned at Craig was how to live with my injuries, how to take care of myself, and how to keep serving the community,” he said.

Educating the Healers of Tomorrow

Silvers’ legacy is perhaps most powerfully seen in the Holocaust Bioethics Program he helped found at the Anschutz Medical Campus. It is one of the few in the world that trains future health professionals on the lessons of Nazi medical crimes.

“Medical personnel were not just complicit. They were leaders of these atrocities,” said Dr. Matt Wynia, the program’s director. “Bill is incredibly focused on ensuring that future generations understand the importance of this history.”

Even after his accident, Silvers returned to seminars, engaging with bioethics fellows and telling his story—and his parents’ story—to students who left inspired.

Morning Reflections and Eternal Hope

Each morning, the weight of reality hits anew. “I wake up and I can’t move,” Silvers admitted. In those moments, he turns to his rabbi, Yaakov Meyer of Aish of the Rockies.

“Why did this happen?” Silvers once asked.

“Because when the body fails, the soul can blossom,” Rabbi Meyer replied. “You can become a greater person.”

So Silvers thinks of his parents. Of his father lifting his mother over a ghetto wall. Of waving the American flag as a child, proud of their new citizenship. Of the sacred gift of freedom.

He gazes out his bedroom window at the Rockies, then uses all his strength to lift his body from his wheelchair. He recalls the power of water—how his parents once healed in the Glenwood Springs hot springs. “Water heals the body and the soul,” he said.

Now, he floats again. And in that warm water, arms spread and heart lifted, he is not paralyzed. He is swimming. He is flying.

He is SuperMenschMan.

The original, longer version of this article appeared on UCHealth’s website and can be viewed here: https://www.uchealth.org/today/freak-pickleball-accident-left-him-paralyzed-recovering-after-spinal-cord-injury/

Listen to Dr. Bill Silvers’s story in Angels in Hell: How to Find Light in the Darkest Places

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