Photo courtesy of TODAY.
Simone Biles gifted an electric wheelchair to John Lee, the father of her teammate and Olympic Gold-Medalist Suni Lee, on the TODAY show Sept. 1.
Lee was
helping a friend trim a tree for his daughter’s wedding when he fell off a ladder, causing a severe spinal cord injury. Lee was left paralyzed from the chest down in 2019. He had been using a manual wheelchair since the accident. His son, Lucky, often pushes his father when they are traveling.Biles and TODAY teamed up to surprise Lee with the new chair from Quantum Rehab. The electric chair will be custom-fit to Lee, and Biles let Lee know that she had a present for him.
“Hi, Mr. Lee, it’s Simone. I love your daughter, Suni, so much and I know how much she loves you. You have done so much for her so I reached out to my friends at the TODAY show to see if we could do something special for you. Hope you like it.”
Lee was surprised by the new chair.
“Oh, my God. Oh my, that is awesome. It’ll be a little different because now they don’t have to keep pushing me around,” he said.
Lee said that he sometimes gets frustrated by his new limitations, but that the wheelchair upgrade will help him be more independent and his son won’t have to be his driver anymore.
“I’m very handy when it comes to doing stuff, so even knowing how to do stuff, I can’t do it, and I get kind of frustrated.”
Lee also showed his appreciation to Biles and called her “the GOAT” for stepping back and giving his daughter a chance to shine and win an Olympic Gold medal while Biles concentrated on her health.
“I want to tell her team that no matter what, you all support her, and I want to tell Simone that she truly is the GOAT because she let my baby girl bring the gold medal,” he said.
His daughter, Suni Lee, is the first Hmong American gymnast to win an Olympic Gold medal.