Neil Squire

Neil Squire was an accounting student at the University of Victoria and a basketball player.

After a car accident left him a high level tetraplegic, his efforts to learn a new form of communication became the inspiration for the creation of the Neil Squire Society.

In December 1980 Squire, who had begun studying accounting at the University of Victoria, hit a patch of black ice only a short distance from his home.

This accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, unable to speak and reliant on a respirator.

After many months of rehabilitation at the Shaughnessy Hospital Spinal Cord Unit, Squire began working with his inventor relative Bill Cameron to learn to use the "sip-and-puff" machine that Bill had created from an old teleprinter to aid Squire in communication.