Once Forced to Crawl Out of Flight, Tragic Demise of 34 Year Old Paralympic Hero Saddens Sports World

Natalie Curtis, who participated in the Paralympics for wheelchair basketball, has passed away. The 34-year-old woman is outlived by her child, a little son. Her sister Emma reported Curtis’s untimely death on February 5, which has left the Townsville community and the whole sports world in sorrow.

Messages left by the family members of the former basketball player

When the 2021 Paralympics were being prepared for in Tokyo, Curtis was a member of the 2021 Gliders wheelchair basketball team. According to a 7 News report, the paralympic basketball player made headlines last year when she said she had to crawl off an aircraft since the airline employees hadn’t brought a wheelchair.

In the report by the 7 News, her sister Emma mourned, writing, “If you knew Natalie, you would know she was the most beautiful, kind and talented person.”

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Curtis had spina bifida from birth but never let it stop her from participating in sports to a noticeable extent. Before she got into basketball, she was a strong swimmer, but she stopped when her younger sister, unfortunately, drowned in the swimming pool. When she was 14, she decided to try out wheelchair basketball, and by 2013, she had won silver at the Japan-Oceania Championships.

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