Shima Nixon Thrives with Bilateral Leg Prostheses After Major Accident

Originally from the rural town of Williamston, North Carolina, Shima was studying nursing at Pitt Community College in March 2013, when her car died at a traffic light. The last memory Shima has is walking to the trunk to check the battery. When she woke up in the hospital three days later, she learned she had been hit by an on-coming car and lost one of her legs above-the-knee. Unfortunately, in July 2013, she would lose her other leg below-the-knee due to a staph infection.
With grit and determination, Shima underwent months of intense rehabilitation, being fit with her first prosthetic legs at Hanger Clinic in November 2013, meaningfully, around Thanksgiving. When she initially tried to stand, she realized she wasn’t sure what to do. Her prosthetist assured her, “Just put one foot in front of the other.” The journey to walking independently again was not easy, but with the mindset that God had saved her life for a reason, Shima made progress, moving from a wheelchair to waking with two canes, to one cane, to accidentally leaving her cane behind one day and realizing she didn’t need it anymore.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shima began applying to O&P master’s programs, the next step in becoming a certified prosthetist / orthotist. She was accepted to multiple schools, but chose Alabama State University, the only historically black college and university (HBCU) with an O&P program, because she knew her purpose included addressing the racial disparities present in healthcare at large and within O&P, where many patients of color do not have a clinician who looks like them.
Shima received the inaugural Hanger Foundation Diversity Scholarship, which supported her studies at ASU and opened the door to a special reunion. When she inquired about whether Stephen Shope, whom she hadn’t spoken to in years, still worked at Hanger Clinic, she not only learned that he did, but she got his email address. Shima and Stephen reconnected virtually, and then in 2023, Shima was asked to share her story at Hanger LIVE, Hanger’s annual educational conference, where she reunited in person with Stephen for the first time in a decade. Stephen had never seen Shima walking or thriving and was incredibly proud of her.
Read more about Shima’s story on the Hanger Clinic blog: hangerclinic.c...
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