Be Not Afraid: Ben Peyton's Story: A Seventeen-Year-Old Hockey Player's Fight to Overcome a Devastating Injury
Ben Peyton's story began on Sunday, December 22, 1996. On that fateful day, while playing hockey for the Edina Junior Gold team, he collided with a player from the opposing team and lay motionless on the ice. His parents, John and Nancy, observed the horrific collision and experienced every parent's worst nightmare. Doctors offered little hope that the seventeen-year old would ever regain use of his limbs. After two emergency surgeries to repair crushed vertebrae and fuse his spine, Ben was...
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Be Not Afraid: Ben Peyton's Story has been mentioned in numerous newspaper articles, most recently by Patrick Reusse in his February 22 column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A portion of all sales of the book are donated to the Morton Cure Paralysis Fund (a local all-volunteer organization). The author, Peter Rennebohm, appeared at an October benefit for 11-year-old Josh Scanlon, who was paralyzed in a gymnastics accident while watching the Olympics last summer. Peter donated a portion of all sales for the night to that benefit. Ben Peyton also appeared and was able to sign books - and serve as an inspiration - for many friends and family members. Recently, a great deal of controversy has arisen regarding the critically acclaimed movie "Million Dollar Baby," due to its apparently fatalistic attitude toward paralysis. There is nothing more convincing of the error of that attitude than the story of Ben Peyton. You can read this book in two or three hours, but it will leave you in tears and full of inspiration. Reusse's column mentions this with respect to another recent accident involving a high school hockey player. Channel 5 Eyewitness News featured this book on its 10:00 newscast March 2, relating Ben Peyton's positive experience to an update on the condition of Luke Green, the recently injured player. These accidents happen with alarming frequency in Minnesota, and seem to happen to those who are the most active and might consider it the worst fate possible. It is important to see positive stories that might help the injured deal with their situation a little better, and even if they don't experience the miraculous level of recovery that Ben Peyton has, it is still valuable to know that there is hope. See also the enclosed article that appeared in the Twin Cities Business Monthly. The author leaves no doubt that he found profound value in this little volume. It might just be the next Where's My Cheese! It seems that this simple little book may contain the power to help even mighty corporate America, along with the injured and the hopeful.
