Word: spastic
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. John Clinton Peurifoy, 19, last surviving son of handsome, fast-driving Diplomat John E. Peurifoy, who, along with his younger son, was killed (1955) at the wheel of a Thunderbird in Thailand; in Tulsa, Okla. When his father was Ambassador to Greece, young John, a wheelchair spastic, was told by Queen Frederika: "In school the best pupil is always given the hardest problems to solve. God gave you the hardest problem of all, so you must be his favorite pupil...
...went to bed for eight months with rheumatic fever. In his early teens it was a broken ankle and acute appendicitis. A $60,000 Indian bonus baby at 19, he has not had a healthy summer since. But a dislocated collarbone, pneumonia again, a severe virus attack and a spastic colon could not keep him from running up a 38-20 won-lost record and a total of 547 strike-outs in 512 innings in the big leagues...
...pressure rose, Biller massaged Smith's spastic muscles and chest. Outside the chamber, doctors watched carefully, consulted over the intercom with Biller, felt new hope when Smith regained consciousness for a few moments. Soon Diver Smith's wife and two sons arrived, agonizingly watched the rescue work through the chamber windows. The frantic minutes dragged by: the decompression cycle began. For eight hours and 40 minutes, Bill Biller worked desperately. Then, thrashing in gasping spasms before the anguished and horrified eyes of his wife, Eldon Smith died...
...find the funds it needs-for the sake of the eleven-year-old with the body of a child of six, for the small boy who developed an emotional trauma from so many beatings at home that he can only say the word "pump," for the 30-year-old spastic who after 17 years of grueling work is at last able to carry on a conversation and to hold down a job as a bookkeeper...
...when Jack Peurifoy was U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, he and his two sons were in an automobile accident. Jack Peurifoy and his younger son, a normal, healthy lad then 9 years old, were killed. But Clinton, 14, the spastic, survived-"by one of those forever puzzling strokes of fate," as Admiral Brown put it. Brown also reported that before he died Jack Peurifoy had come "to really believe that God, in His way which passes all human understanding, was preparing a favorite spot for a little boy who must spend his earthly days as a hopeless cripple...