By admin 
SHELBY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A teenage rodeo star from Shelby is working to get movement back in his legs after a devastating spinal injury.
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At just 17 years old, Turner Morris was a world-class bull and saddle bronc rider for the International Professional Rodeo Association.
That dream was snatched away in an instant this summer at a rodeo in Georgia.
Morris says his saddle bronc horse laid down awkwardly, and when he came out of the chute, Morris’s stirrup popped off and he bailed off the horse.
The fall compressed his spinal cord.
Morris immediately realized he couldn’t move.
More than three months later, Morris still has no movement below his waist, and only partial movement in his hands.
“My mindset is to do as much as I can as early as I can to try to maximize my recovery,” he said. “Got to adapt to whatever situation you’re in. I’ve been like that since I was little. I’ve been able to adapt to different things, and this is nothing different.”
The high school senior shuttles between his home in Shelby and a rehab hospital in Atlanta, while still making time to be homecoming king and attend a benefit rodeo in Bessemer City that raised money toward his recovery.
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“He is the reason that we stay so positive,” said Amanda Morris, Turner’s mother. “Not one day has he said, ‘I don’t want to do therapy.’ As long as he’s going to fight, we’re going to fight with him, for him, and help him get to what recovery looks like for him.”
There’s no guarantee Morris will get any more movement back, but his family is facing down what they describe as “overwhelming” bills to send Turner to a neurorecovery center in Fort Mill next month.
“It’s his ultimate goal to walk again, and we firmly believe with the help of the Lord, he’ll be able to do that in therapy,” Amanda Morris said.
Turner Morris says it’s the support he’s received from his community and from around the world that will help him go far in his recovery.
“It’s kind of how I was always raised: to not dwell on what’s happened but look forward to what’s to come,” he said.
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If you’d like to donate toward Morris’s medical bills, click here.