Vaughn Pfeffer: Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Rewards
Vaughn Pfeffer was on a lunch break at Planet Fitness in January of 2021 attempting to get his daily fix of exercise.
He’d finished a warm-up jog and made his way to the weight floor and laid out on a bench but when he tried to sit up, he would collapse due to an aortic dissection, a serious heart condition which forced immediate surgery and paralyzed him from the belly button down.
With no prior health concerns Pfeffer was thrown into shock following the life-altering injury, but it hasn’t stopped him from continuing his fitness journey, and over the past year competed on the highest levels of Wheelchair football.
The then 35-year-old didn’t wake up for two days and immediately knew something was wrong when he couldn’t move his legs. Upon hearing the tragic news, Pfeffer said everyone responds differently, but he was left trying to reimagine his life.
“I was depressed,” he said. “The first few weeks of like really facing this new reality and I was nothing sounded like fun to me. I felt like my body was robbed from me.”
However, the first two years of rehabilitation are crucial for T-five paraplegics such as Pfeffer and he was determined to start the process as soon as he could. He would enroll as an inpatient at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.
“I was geared towards regaining as much independence as possible,” he said. “The rehab was all out of pocket, so it added up quickly and I was trying to find other ways to help myself out.”
Alongside him through his two years of recovery has been his fiance Ariadne Carvalhais. The couple became engaged just two weeks before Pfeffler’s aortic dissection. For them, they felt the rug was wept from out underneath them. Carlvalhais noted how the overall experience displayed the true character of her husband-to-be
“It's been a learning experience, watching somebody who I love go through something so traumatic and trying to be supportive and navigate this new world together,” Carvalhais said. “But it made me learn more about the person that he is and his resilience and his strength and his passion for sports and his passion for helping other people.”
Basketball had always been important to Pfeffer whether it was competing in high school or the three adult leagues before the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was a fundraising event for people with spinal cord injuries where he happened to be seated next to a gentleman who’d introduced him to wheelchair basketball.
It started as a singular pick-up game one night, but turned into a twice-week event Pfeffer looked forward to for the next four months. At first, he found it difficult to play the sport, but the sense of community kept him wanting to come back.
“It felt good just to get back out there and compete, but it's totally different when you're in a chair,” he said. “I really hit it off with these guys and it just felt good to be around some people who understood what I was going through.”
With his competitive fire rekindled, he heard rumblings of a new wheelchair football team coming to Boston but didn’t know if it was a good fit for him. He had never played organized football prior, but multi-adaptive sports player Joe LaMar convinced him to join.
It would quickly become his favorite wheelchair sport mostly because it wasn’t all about the wins and losses but the connections formed through the connections formed.
“It's a brotherhood,” he explained. “We’ll go on trips for two or three nights and, you know, nobody likes to lose but like it's not really about that, it's really about getting to know your guys and sharing stories and sharing your struggles.”
The New England Patriots Wheelchair football team would find glory with their first win against the Las Vegas Raiders which Pfeffer noted felt like winning the Super Bowl.
Carlvalhais encountered the community when she traveled with Pfeffer to Buffalo for a tournament. She said it was one of the most phenomenal environments she has seen.
“What we experienced in Buffalo was the best experience I've ever had in my life,” she said. “These are amazing human beings and they are putting their best foot forward while given the worst circumstances in life … in the competitive sense they are giving it their all and after the game, you can see them smiling and having a good time. It’s an outstanding community.”
The Canton, MA native hasn’t just stopped in basketball and football but completed his first 5K with his family last year at the Canton Road Race. His older sister Stephanie Pfeffer was delighted to have him out there.
“We were all so proud to be participating as a family and it wouldn’t have been complete without Vaughn,” she said. “He was always my racing buddy before the injury and it was originally heartbreaking when the news came out in 2021. But it’s great to see how much he’s done in the time since.”
The family donned shirts and sweaters Mr. Pfeffer’s branding “Life Got Wheels” he started shortly after the beginning of his recovery. It hasn’t just been all sports for the 37-year-old with focuses on bettering others volunteering at local non-profits such as Journey Forward or being on the advisory board for the MW Fund and the Book Prose.