He went to sleep drunk in his Fordham University dormitory bed — and woke up in a hospital paralyzed from the neck down.
Sophomore Kei Usami, 20, fell nearly four feet off a school-supplied “loft” bed in February, smashing his head so hard that the impact fractured his spine, according to a suit blaming the university’s Bronx campus for neglecting to install guardrails on the bed.
The university’s student volunteer EMS squad only sealed the school tennis player’s fate by transporting him without a neck brace to St. Barnabas Hospital, charges his lawyer, Vito Cannavo.
The school blames Usami for the incident because “of his voluntary consumption of large amounts of alcohol,” court records show.
Still, Fordham has since sued two companies that supplied the bed.
Robert Howe, a Fordham spokesman, declined to comment.
Fordham began providing the loft beds after it started putting three students into dorm rooms designed for two people.
After four months in the hospital and $1.1 million in medical bills, Usami returned to his Darien, Conn., home in a wheelchair.
He regained movement in his left hand after grueling physical therapy and returned to Fordham this fall to study business. When he goes to watch the tennis team he played for, he has to be carried into the clubhouse.
“I wonder if for the rest of my life I’m going to be in a wheelchair. That makes me work hard,” Usami said. “My goal is to attend graduation in 2013 and walk up and get my diploma.”