Young Moot paraplegic reaches new heights overseas

A 15-year-old paraplegic talent from the Moot is sharing his story, while also achieving greatness in the field of junior athletics.

Emile Burgers who attends Hoërskool Dirk Postma loves riding his bike, playing sport and dreams of attending the Paralympics next year.

“My story began in the womb,” says Burgers.

“I have a twin brother, and while my mother was pregnant with us, my umbilical cord twisted around my right leg. Unfortunately that resulted in my leg never developing properly and when we were born, the doctors only noticed the issue. At the age of six months, the doctors had to amputate what had in fact grown in order to make proper prosthetics to fit my leg.”

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This did not have any effect on Burgers’ willingness to succeed and miraculously by the age of eight months, he started crawling.

Johan Snyders, who designs and manufactures Burgers’ prosthetics introduced the teen to the world of paraplegic athletics.

Burgers recently participated in a paraplegic qualifying event in Noville, Switzerland where he came first for javelin and second for shot put.

Antoinette Burgers, Emile’s mom told Rekord that her son has always been a go-getter, meeting his milestones as a child well ahead of what was predicted.

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“He received his first prosthetics at eight months of age. He started walking at one year, three weeks. From very young, he kept up with his brother, not letting any physical challenge keep him from doing what all the other kids were doing. He climbed trees and even ended up on the roof once. We always gave him the opportunity to at least try everything like swimming and running. We just wanted him to be a kid and do whatever he wanted,” she said.

Burgers hopes to make the South African paraplegic athletes team travelling to the Senior World Paraplegic Games in Dubai in November.

“If I can do this, I would really love to qualify for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo,” Burgers says.

As for his future plans, Burgers would really like to attend university to study theology after matric and dedicate his life to helping others.

Watch the video here:

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