Honoring NorCal SCI Co-Founder Nick Struthers
Gina Boomershine and Dr. James Crew of SCVMC presenting Nick Struthers with a plaque, for all of his years of service to the SCI community in Northern California.
On Monday September 8th, the SCI Rehab staff at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) organized a sendoff event for NorCal SCI co-founder Nick Struthers. During the event, the SCVMC team dedicated a plaque to Nick for all of his years of service. After over 29 years living in California, Nick and his wife Julie have decided to move back to their native Scotland.
Nick suffered an incomplete C5-6 SCI in 2004 from a mountain biking accident and although he made a nearly full recovery, he was always interested in giving back to the SCI community and helping others who go through this life-changing event.
Nick began attending weekly peer support meetings at SCVMC in 2014, where he met fellow NorCal SCI co-founder Franklin Elieh, who had been coming to the meetings for several years before. It’s safe to assume that if it weren’t for the Monday peer support meetings, NorCal SCI would never have existed!
Since then, Nick has been consistently attending the weekly meetings and sharing his knowledge, wisdom, and advice to the newly injured. Countless members of the NorCal SCI community credited Nick for their own involvement with peer support and how the meetings and interactions helped them with their own respective recoveries and find hope during the most difficult time in their lives.
Our organization, as well as the entire Northern California SCI community will miss Nick’s presence tremendously. There is no substitute for the commitment, care, and sincere passion he has shown over the years. Thankfully, he’ll still remain involved with NorCal SCI and will continue as the Chairman of the Board of Directors, albeit in a different time zone.
We are forever grateful to Nick for co-founding NorCal SCI, helping countless individuals over the years, and growing our organization to what it is today: an essential resource for the SCI community in Northern California.
