Why Dennis Prager Didn’t Ask ‘Why Me?’ After the Accident That Left Him Paralyzed — but Did Before

“Paralysis is not the end of life,” Dennis Prager, author and PragerU co-founder, said on October 15 in his first in-person public speech since a 2024 accident left him paralyzed. “It’s a different life.”

But his next line, as seen in video of the speech, showed he had no intention of sugarcoating what life is like as a quadriplegic. “It’s crappier,” he acknowledged. The Miami crowd laughed, perhaps because his honesty about his struggles eased the tension and because they could feel the truth in his claim that his “identity is Dennis, not victim.”

And what are the struggles in Prager’s post-accident life? At the top of the list has been trying to recover the ability to breathe without a ventilator, a fight that has taken up most of the last two years. He told the audience it was a “semi-miracle” that he was speaking to them without one, a reminder of how few of us appreciate the miracle of taking about 20,000 breaths a day. As Marc Tritell writes at Chabad.org, “your lungs are constantly working to replenish the depleted blood coming into them quickly enough to deliver oxygen to... 50 trillion cells, literally on a minute-by-minute basis, without our ever needing to think about it.”

Prager wants people to think more about how fortunate they are to be able to do things like breathe without assistance and move their arms. He talked about how he envies paraplegic people and how much he wishes he could wheel himself around, use a keyboard, and hug his family. Reading from his 1998 book Happiness Is a Serious Problem, he said that “ideally we should awaken every day and be as happy about our good health as if we had just received the wonderful news that a lump was benign.”

Prager himself woke up on Tuesday morning, Nov. 12, 2024, with the ability to breathe and move his arms and legs without thinking twice. The accident happened during his morning shower. He shared exactly how it occurred: “I stepped out of the shower in my home, slipped on the finished wooden floor, fell backward, and hit my head on the side of the bathtub." 

The first doctor he saw at the hospital told him and his wife, Sue, that palliative care was the best option to ensure a peaceful and painless end. Prager noted that even the irreligious doctors who saw him from the beginning call it a miracle that he has no brain damage and can speak and breathe now. "What I do believe is that God is with me at this painful time in my life," he said.

Prager also can't help but wonder if it was miraculous that his wife was present when he fell. He explained:

On virtually any given morning, while I would shower upstairs, my wife would be downstairs in the kitchen preparing my breakfast and lunch to take to the radio studio. On that fateful morning, for whatever reason, Sue was upstairs, and she actually saw me fall. She not only saved me from brain damage, she probably saved my life.

One other detail about the fall — that he ran out of the shower onto the wooden floor while dripping wet because he was impatient to get a new razor he wanted to use — surely doesn’t remind only me of my own slips in the shower and how a horrible fall could happen to any of us. Prager says that this kind of reminder is actually an effective way to avoid depression. He has never asked “Why me?” since the accident. Before it, he asked it all the time, wondering why he had been spared the suffering so many others endure, whether from human evil, disease, or injury. It was his way of acknowledging that things might not always be so good.

We should remind ourselves daily that tragedy can happen to any of us. That will not only lead to gratitude and thus happiness when things are going well in our lives, but will also prepare us to handle negative events. Prager said: “Most people wait until tragedy strikes before thinking about how to incorporate tragedy into their lives, and then the shock is often too great to absorb into their emotional and psychological system.”

     Also Read: A Disturbing New Poll — and Dennis Prager’s Warning for America

Prager has chosen perseverance over depression because he still has so much to live for. "I love life as much as I have ever loved life, and I don’t want to leave my loved ones," he said with his son Aaron sitting on stage with him.

It's always important to put things in perspective, Prager told the audience. He pointed to the late journalist Charles Krauthammer, who was paralyzed in a diving accident in his 20s, while Prager was 75 when he fell. Seventy-five years is a long time to create memories, and Prager says memories are essential to happiness: “Memory is everything. That is what makes us human. If you lose your memory, you’re gone. Your body is here, but you’re gone.”

Another reason I loathe the left is that they’re destroying our national memory. This is a horror. There is no memory of good and no memory of bad. About half of young Democrats think that socialism, the greatest mass murder machine in human history, is a good thing. They couldn’t spell “gulag,” let alone tell you what happened there, and they couldn’t spell “Auschwitz,” or “national socialism,” or “Nazism.”

Prager apologized to the audience for getting political, but it was one more opportunity for them to practice gratitude. Charlie Kirk dedicated his last book to Prager in recognition of all that he has done for humanity. Those who heard Prager speak could be grateful that he is still here sharing his wisdom on the most important issues of the day.

Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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