Teen Zachary Rice Provides Video Games to Pediatric Patients

As a part of our "Newark at a Crossroads" series taped at NJIT, Steve Adubato sits down with Prudential Spirit of Community Honoree, Zachary Rice, and his mother, Shannon. Zachary explains how his father’s idea to distract him from his pain during a hospital stay with video games turned it into Zachary's campaign to help “distract” other kids from their illnesses.

9/27/16 #1897

 

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We are honored to be joined by Zach Rice, who is a Prudential Spirit of Community honoree, and his mom, Shannon Rice. Welcome! Thank you. Thank you. What a great story. Now you are the 2016 Prudential Spirit of Community Award honoree, selected nationwide, was one of the top young people. You're 13 years old. What's his...? What's your story? It's a very long one, but I'll try to shorten it a little. I was in 4th grade and I got strep throat that went totally un-diagnosed, and surprisingly, it travels throughout your body, and it landed in my hip, and that started a septic hip infection. That... I was a goalie, so as you can see, it kinda got me away from it. And in the hospital, we didn't really think much of it at the time but my dad brought in a PS3 from home and it distracted me from my pain. And so all that's done, and there is like this really really really small chance that out of this rare illness I will get another one where my hip bone actually dies and it doesn't like have a funeral and everything. No no, it gets soft, and picture this is the femoral head, whenever I was walking it was getting a little bit flatter and flatter. Luckily we caught it early and then I was in the hospital, it was much worse, way more painful, and this time we can bring in a gaming system and it really brought to light how much I was distracted, and I had this thing, it's called an external fixator, really kinda new. I had seven metal pins, three here, like on my thigh, three near my butt, and the one kind of by my hip and it lessened the impact of me walking, and it allowed it time to heal. But as I was in this giant amount of pain, and I actually had a hospital bed in my home they were inching me out of it for about forty five minutes a day. And I turned to my mom and I'd say, "Hey, can I start a charity?" You said, "Can I start a charity?" Mm hmm. Why? I just, I wanted other kids to be distracted with the gaming systems, because I knew how much that kinda distracted me from my pain, and it just kinda took me out of that world. So I asked, and though she almost had a heart attack, thought it over a little bit..."