Nurse Takes Back Seat to No One : ‘Bolt of Lightning’ in Wheelchair Is Health Professional of Year

Susie Matz has been confined to a wheelchair for nearly 20 years. Life in a wheelchair isn’t getting any more fun. But life itself is.

And Matz wants everyone to know.

She’s known for singing as she makes her way around the halls of Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where she has worked the past 10 years.

And she has a plaque hanging over her desk that reads: “God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing.”

In her work, the 42-year-old registered nurse helps the recently disabled get accustomed to their lives in wheelchairs.

As a discharge coordinator in the rehabilitation unit, Matz one minute is helping her patients untangle the red tape of insurance claims and the next assuring them it is all right to cry and mourn their loss of mobility.

Life After Paralysis

But, most of all, “I help them to see there’s life after paralysis,” Matz said.

She has been so successful that last week she was named California’s Health Professional of the Year.

She was chosen by Gov. George Deukmejian’s Committee for Employment of the Handicapped from among 20 other finalists, none of whom was disabled, said Catherine Baird, executive director of the committee.

Usually outgoing and glib, Matz, was bubbling over with pride Friday.

“Look at this, isn’t this neat,” she asked gesturing to the plaque. Her voice rose to a shout: “Isn’t this incredible? Look at me, getting an award from the governor! Can you imagine how that feels?”

Matz was paralyzed from the waist down when her vertebrae were crushed in a private airplane accident nearly 20 years ago.

Her father urged her to study nursing some years ago. After she graduated from Los Angeles Valley College in 1970, it took Matz three years to find a job, she said.

Wants to Write, Lecture

It took her two tries to pass her nursing examinations.

She was angry and depressed. Then, slowly, she began to believe in herself, she said. And, as she did, she realized that, in helping others, she gained strength.

Now, Matz finds no obstacles.

She is talking about writing a book and wants to hit the lecture circuit.

Matz, a Northridge resident, has been speaking with junior-high and high-school students in the Valley for about eight years and is convinced she has plenty to tell people about perseverance and hard work.

“That’s how you do it, man,” she said. “You work and you work hard. You hold that dream. This is what we are alive to do--to grow, to enrich ourselves and others.”

After receiving the award last week, Matz acted as her own publicist and called television stations and newspapers.

“I want to be more public, you can see I have a big personality,” she said. “I’ve learned you have to be your own best salesperson, you have to go after the things you believe.”

Matz, a robust, handsome woman, punctuates most of her remarks with dramatic gestures and exclamations. Her words can switch in a moment from a quote of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to an emphatic street expression.

‘Like a Lightning Bolt’

“You can see I’m like a lightning bolt,” she said. “I get so excited.”

One of Matz’s patients recalled Friday how he was struck by that excitement.

“The day I first saw her whiz by in her chair, I said, ‘I’ve got to meet this lady,’ ” said 27-year-old Carlos Smith, confined to a wheelchair since an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down last May. “She’s really a very strong lady, she let me know there’s life after the chair and that you can succeed if you approach things the right way. She’s going to be a forever friend.”

Hospital administrator Jeff Flocken is another fan.

“Susie’s outstanding, she really is an inspiration, not only to the patients here at the hospital, but also to all of the staff,” he said. “She’s a tremendously motivating individual who has overcome some tremendous odds.”

Matz said she is just as inspired by the spirit of patients like the ebullient Smith, who taught gymnastics at Los Angeles Valley College before he had his accident while doing a somersault.

“He has an amazing attitude,” she said. “He’s touched the staff here immensely. I know I’ll never forget that guy as long as I live.”

Matz and Smith talked and laughed on Friday as they lined up their wheelchairs side by side for a photographer.

“We’re doing the two-step, baby,” Matz told Smith.

Smith smiled and said, “Yeah, we’ll go dancing one day.”