22 June 2026
From paralysis to the Paralympics: A story of pride, community and resilience
“I’m convinced curling saved my marriage.”
Life came at Katie Verderber fast.
While serving as a judge advocate general in the United States Army, she injured her spine in 2019. She continued to serve in the military for three more years through the pain and three failed operations. During her service, she met Danielle, and the couple married in June 2023.
Just months into their marriage, life looked very different. Following an emergency surgery, Katie’s spine never recovered and she suddenly had to navigate the world from a wheelchair.
“As most people are when they find out they’re paralysed, I was distraught, devastated, angry, and I still have all those feelings, just a little more controlled than it was at the time,” said Verderber.
“I remember in the hospital bed, and them teaching me how to sit up properly and how to get dressed, and I hated everybody.”
A New Community Through Wheelchair Curling
The next six months were a low point for the veteran, who struggled to adapt to her new life back in her home state of Montana. For Danielle, life quickly shifted to include caring for her wife while navigating the emotional toll of a partner whose world had been turned upside down.
Then came an opportunity to try wheelchair curling in April 2024.
That first session introduced Verderber to national team members Steve Emt, Dan Rose, Sean O’Neill and Laura Dwyer, who would become one of her closest friends and mentors.
“Getting to know the team is part of the reason I fell in love with it,” she said. “They were so welcoming, and not just for curling, but mentors. Laura was the first female I met in a wheelchair.
“I wanted to keep doing this, because I wanted to be around these people.”
A reinvigorated Verderber quickly became obsessed with the sport, travelling to training camps across the country to improve her game and spend more time with her new friends. She credits the team for creating a judgement-free environment and supporting her through some of the most difficult moments of her life.
“I remember being scared to tell them that I was gay and married to another woman, because all walks of life is very true of our team,” said Verderber. “My wife had called me, or my phone had lit up, and they go, ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were married?’
“Well, I still live in a world where I have to judge people to find out if you can share that, right? It’s not always safe. And they were just so incredible.”
Learning to Heal
Curling was no longer a distraction from paralysis — it became a lifeline.
Her teammates helped teach her how to use her wheelchair and supported her through ongoing struggles with her mental health and marriage. Dwyer, who had also become paralysed later in life, provided a unique perspective as someone who understood many of the same challenges.
The team also gave Verderber a place to vent about her disability in a way that family and friends without similar experiences could not fully understand.
But good friends are also willing to tell hard truths.
“I’m so fortunate I found it [curling] so soon into my injury, because it was working through that and being able to express myself that made me open and more vulnerable in my relationship and my marriage to hear the hard things, to hear how my wife was hurting through all of this and what she needed beyond me,” added Verderber.
“That was because I was able to get that stuff off my chest with Laura and Steve, and to hear ‘This is normal, this is how we feel, and we all have been there, but hey you better wake up. Talk to us about these things, but you need to make sure you’re being the partner that Danielle deserves too.’”
At times, her growing obsession with curling had taken attention away from the person who had supported her the most.
After hearing Danielle’s concerns about being shut out emotionally, the couple began attending counselling together and became more vulnerable with one another.
From there, Verderber was able to explain why curling had become “much more than just a sport,” telling Danielle how her new teammates had helped make her “a better person and a better wife.” Danielle responded with unwavering support for the journey ahead.
From First Rock to the Paralympics
But first, she still had to make Team USA.
Selection for the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games would not be decided until June 2025.
“I remember the night before we just finished the last day of camp, I had texted Steve, and I was staying with Laura and I said, ‘hey, no matter what happens tomorrow, you promise you’ll still be my friend and we’ll still have these relationships if I don’t make the team?’ Because I don’t know what I would do without them,” she said.
“I had to make the team because they’ve just been so integral in my journey, in my healing, I owe so much to them.
“They had no sense of who Katie was before a wheelchair, it was the first time in my injury that I was around people who never knew me before, and that was so incredibly powerful, because they didn’t have preconceived notions about me.”
Fortunately, she did not have to dwell on the what-ifs for long.
Verderber was selected as Team USA’s alternate for the four-person wheelchair curling event, just over a year after throwing her first rock.
Between January and March, she spent only nine days at home. Waiting for her in Cortina d’Ampezzo was a cheering section of 19 friends and family members.
She spent time in Italy with Danielle, her mother and her stepfather, while also reconnecting with friends from law school and the Army who had remained by her side throughout her recovery. Many booked their trips as soon as they learned she had made the team.
Although most of her Paralympic experience was spent in the alternate box, she still found herself at the centre of one unforgettable moment.
After entering a game against Latvia following the fourth end, Verderber was greeted by a wall of noise.
“The whole arena was chanting my name and our sports psychologist took a video of it and he sent it to me after the game,” said Verderber, still with a look of surprise at what occurred that day.
“Two years ago I was told I was never gonna walk again and now I’m like in the biggest arena at the biggest time of our sport and my name was getting chanted.”
Giving Back to Danielle
She still replays that video whenever she is having a bad day.
Now that she is home, however, her focus has shifted elsewhere — and the bad days are becoming less frequent.
“Now it’s trying to get back to reality a little bit and give back to Danielle and the things that she wants to do because that was such a big commitment,” she said from her home, where she is now back working as a civil litigation attorney.
“We were constantly training and I had to leave to go practice and Danielle stayed home, took care of the dogs, took care of the house, just like supported all of that and I just got to go curl and do this incredible experience.
“It’s one of those top five moments of my life that I will never forget and I will replay parts of it every single day until I lose my memory or die. No words could ever describe what she has been to me and the love and support she has given me.
“When I found out I made the team I told her this is just as much your moment as it is mine. I know it’s my name they’re going to be chanting it’s my name you know on the uniform, but it’s really a testament to you.
“She doesn’t get the champion attention and I just told her whatever she wants, I’m here for us.”
At the time of our conversation, the couple were preparing for a trip to Hawaii as they approached their third wedding anniversary.
For Verderber, the promise is simple: be more present and give back to the person who carried her through the hardest chapter of her life and stood beside her through the highs of the Paralympics.
“It’s hard to say no to anything that a partner asks, who just supported the most incredible experience of your life,” she added.
“She could probably ask me to go skydiving and I’d find a way to make it happen.”
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