(Denver Post) - U.S. Army Capt. Jonathan Pruden was wheeling down the center lane of Army Canal Highway in eastern Baghdad on a summer day in 2003, doing about 55 in a doorless Humvee when his world exploded.

"I remember everything went quiet and black, and then we were seeing stuff spraying all over the windshield," Pruden recalled last week.

"And I thought, 'Oh, crap, they hit the hydraulic lines.' And then I remembered there weren't hydraulic lines there. It was arterial bleeding from my leg spraying up on the windshield."

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Less than six years later, Pruden, 31, arrived in Denver last week as a reserve big man for the Orlando Magic Wheels of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association.

"I was introduced to it in 2006 at the Veterans Wheelchair Games in Anchorage," he said. "It seemed like an opportunity to be competitive again, push myself physically and play a team sport that's truly challenging and requires a lot of skill.

"I think a lot of people assume, well, you're disabled and you have to use a wheelchair — you're not fit, you're not athletic, you're not vigorous.

"And it's great to be out here with a whole pile of amazing people who have overcome their disabilities and are pushing themselves literally and figuratively to be the best person they can be."

Read the full Denver Post article about this inspiring Vet...