After months of grueling therapy, the Kent State operations manager for the Grounds Department will be awarded the Power to Work Award today by Edwin Shaw Hospital.

The Power of Rehabilitation Awards are held locally in conjunction with the National Rehabilitation Week to celebrate patients who are rehabilitation stars.

"Mr. Norman is our Power to Work star this year because he has already returned to his career at Kent State," Edwin Shaw Hospital Vice President Linda Cinson said.

After the fall, the 46-year-old Kent State employee was taken by Life Flight helicopter to Akron City Hospital's trauma unit where he was immediately put on a respirator to keep him from drowning in his own blood.

His thumb, three vertebrae and seven ribs were broken. His skull had been fractured in two places.

To help assess the extent of his head injury, doctors asked him routine questions such as his name, age, and who is the president of the United States.

"I was answering the questions quite well until I insisted that the President of the United States was Carol Cartwright," Norman said.

Norman had extensive brain damage which affected his memory.

Among the many things he had to relearn, he said that learning to walk was one of the most difficult.

Life for Norman would never again be the same.