Written By: Brittany Jordan
Edited By: Sarah Martinson
raveling is in his blood.
Born in Hong Kong, Colin Buchanan, 27 has been traveling all around the
world ever since he was young. Even though he is a globetrotter, he calls Seattle, where he grew up, home, and now lives in Chicago. Most recently, he sailed to Cuba with a group of friends who are, like him, in wheelchairs.
Eleven years ago, when he was 16, Buchanan was in a high-speed car accident with a group of friends. One of his friends was driving too fast and lost control of the car. Everyone survived the accident, though Buchanan sustained a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
When he was younger, Buchanan’s sense of adventure manifested in his love of sports. He “played about every sport under the sun,” he says, from soccer and track to football and baseball. Before his accident, the sports he was most active in were lacrosse, snowboarding and downhill mountain biking.
Before his accident, Buchanan worked at a bike shop, learning everything he could about two-wheelers to sell them to customers. After his accident, the shop owner asked him to come back to work, explaining to Buchanan that he was a great salesman, wheelchair or not. However, Buchanan decided to pursue other endeavors.
“I was confident I could, but it was like dangling candy in front of you that you can’t eat,” Buchanan explains. When he could no longer ride, he lost interest in bikes and didn’t want to be around them.
Even though he could no longer walk or ride a bike, as a college student in 2012, Buchanan went backpacking through Europe by himself for two months. He knew the trip would be difficult, and he still wanted to embark on it. To his surprise, most of the hostels in Europe were accommodating to his wheelchair, which made his trip easier.
Buchanan is an associate product manager at ReWalk Robotics, a company developing exoskeletons that give people who are paralyzed the ability to walk again. He started working at the company after an unexpected encounter in college.
One day he was going out to dinner with his girlfriend at the time and her friends. While they were walking to Chipotle, a man excitedly ran up to him and asked Buchanan if he knew anything about exoskeleton technology.
While the women were surprised by the man, Buchanan was not. He is used to strangers asking him questions or telling him about their friends who are also in wheelchairs. The man told him he was a capital investor considering ReWalk Robotics as a possible investment. He asked Buchanan if he knew anything about exoskeleton technology, which he did. When they finally arrived at Chipotle and the investor was still talking to him, Buchanan offered to meet with the man at Starbucks to talk more.
At Starbucks a few days later, Buchanan and the investor talked more about ReWalk and exoskeleton technology. The man thought Buchanan would be an ideal spokesmen for ReWalk and asked Buchanan for his resume to send to executives at the company.
A couple months later, Buchanan got an email from ReWalk to schedule an interview. He flew to its James J. Peters VA Medical Center in New York for the interview. Before he even graduated college that May, they offered him a job as marketing development manager.
“So that’s how I got [my job], going to Chipotle to order a burrito,” Buchanan says. “That’s the moral of the story really—eat burritos.”
While working for ReWalk as a marketing manager, he developed an educational outreach program. Through that program, Buchanan educates people on the life-changing benefits of ReWalk’s technology and educational programs.
“The social benefits to walk again and speak to someone eye to eye is pretty extraordinary,” Buchanan says.
While working for ReWalk, Buchanan continues mentoring youth and adults at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago who have spinal cord injuries. He started mentoring other people in Seattle after his car accident. In 2010, he became a mentor at RIC when he started attending DePaul.
He remembers how weak and defeated he felt from his own back surgery after his accident, when doctors placed titanium rods into his back to support his spine. While in recovery at the hospital, someone showed him how to pop a wheelie, which instantly lifted his spirits.
As a mentor, Buchanan tries to help motivate his mentees by sharing stories and videos about his travels to encourage them to continue pursuing their passions and keep moving forward with their lives. He also teaches his mentees to be proactive about their treatment by asking their doctors’ questions they might not think to ask, and he gives them tips for how to physically navigate their wheelchairs, if needed.
“Not walking is the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “You’re relearning every aspect of your life.”
Some of his mentees are victims of Chicago’s gun violence who’ve became paralyzed from gunshot wounds. To address each of his mentees’ individual experiences and circumstances, he uses different mentoring tactics and methods. He tries to divert his students from obsessing about having been in the wrong place at the wrong time at the time of their accident.
For instance, when his friend, who is also in a wheelchair, used to continually focus on the negative—such as saying, “Well, we still can’t walk.”—Buchanan reminded him that his pessimistic attitude could end up pushing away other people.
“I always tell the people, ‘Hey, when being pissed off and just sitting in your bed doing nothing, getting less and less healthier, fatter helps you walk again, let me know because I’ll come back and I’ll do the same thing,’ ” he says.
As an associate product manager at ReWalk, Buchanan launches product updates and does marketing research. His job tasks range from ensuring that ReWalk’s products are safe and user-friendly to building relationships with other spinal injury associations, such as the United Spinal Association. He also travels across the country to conferences and expos representing ReWalk.
“I’m just going to take it one step at a time, as ironic as that sounds,” he says.
“You’re relearning every aspect of your life.”
Buchanan on his trip to Cuba with his friend, Robby Beckman. Courtesy of Colin Buchanan
Buchanan travels the world on wheels
Colin Buchanan strolling on the streets of Cuba. Courtesy of Colin Buchanan
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