Former Shriners Children’s Spokane Patient Susannah Scaroni Qualifies for Fourth Paralympic Games

Former Shriners Children’s Spokane patient Susannah Scaroni is no stranger to adversity, but she’s no stranger to success, too.

After being paralyzed in a car accident in 1997 when she was 5, she started her journey with the nonprofit healthcare system a couple of years later. Then being introduced to parasports through Shriners Children’s No Limits Adaptive Sports Clinic and introduced to a local adaptive sports team, ParaSport Spokane, Susannah catapulted to a lengthy career in wheelchair racing. She recently qualified for her fourth Paralympics, the upcoming 2024 Paris Games, after her performance in the New York City Marathon.

Her journey wasn’t straightforward on her way to qualifying for Paris. In 2021, she was hit by a car while training and injured her spine. Looking back, she said she is lucky to be alive, and that moment has helped her in her athletic career.

“There are always challenges in life whether you’re an athlete or not,” Susannah said. “I’m not immune to letting those get in my head. After the accident, the gratitude and feeling of having my life is an attitude I put toward athletics in general now. Leading up to the 2024 Games this year, I’ve had some injuries, including a shoulder overuse injury. For me, I learn from every challenge. I’m embracing the setbacks so I can learn from them.”

While growing up, Susannah had procedures at Shriners Children’s Spokane in elementary school and junior high, including having her hip incisors snipped and staples put into her knees. She said she also learned to prioritize her health from a young age because of the care and information she received at Shriners Children’s.

Susannah’s list of accomplishments is impressive, including a gold medal in the 2021 Paralympics in the 5,000 meters, and a bronze in the 800. She captured the Chicago Marathon title in 2022. She won the New York City Marathon in the same year, breaking the course record at the time in 1:42:43 and beating fellow Shriners Children’s alumni Tatyana McFadden’s record. Susannah also won the Boston Marathon in 2023, and her third-place finish in the 2023 New York City Marathon secured her qualification for the 2024 Paralympics.

“Finding out you qualified for the Paralympics in the fall is an amazing relief and creates a ton of excitement,” she said. “For my first two Paralympics, I didn’t find out I was going until the summer trials. Currently in my training for the Paralympics, we do high-speed intervals as our workouts. There’s a huge reliance on accelerating to a really high speed in wheelchair racing, so we work on that a lot.”

During her collegiate career, Susannah attended the University of Illinois, where Tatyana McFadden took her under her wing. She now trains with the Illinois wheelchair racing team six days a week in preparation for the Paralympics, where she has the chance to add to her already lengthy resume. While Susannah is busy with her athletic career, she still makes time to mentor and encourage young athletes at home when she returns to the Spokane area. She said in the future she would like to be involved even more with younger athletes.