A Swimming Accident Left Him Paralyzed. Then an Unexpected Encounter with a Therapist Changed His Love Story Forever

Cole Sydnor became a quadriplegic in August 2011, when he was just a teenager. He sustained a spinal cord injury after a misjudged dive into Virginia’s James River, leaving him without functionality from the chest down.

Sydnor has been in a wheelchair for nearly a decade and a half. His life changed in an instant, but it also went on. He adjusted his routine to the circumstances of his disability, relearning how to do everything from going to school to going to the gym. In fact, it was through the latter that changed his life again — this time, for the better.

While living in Virginia, he worked out at the Sheltering Arms Institute rehabilitation facility. He used the space as a gym, tapping the assistance of trained employees when needed, depending on the type of exercise he was doing. “I can’t go to Crunch Fitness,” Sydnor, now 30, tells PEOPLE.

In 2017, his path crossed with Charisma Jamison, an inpatient therapist working at Sheltering Arms. Looking back, she emphasizes how much she never walked into the facility expecting to do anything beyond helping her patients. She wasn’t looking for a date or even any close friends, necessarily, especially since most of the people she worked with were a decent number of years older than her.

“I did not think I would meet someone my age, and then I’m not going to work thinking I’m going to meet someone to date, either. I’m just going to work to help people get back to their daily life,” Jamison, now 31, recalls. Meanwhile, Sydnor admits he had a completely different perspective.

“Everywhere I went, I was looking for my life partner. So whether it was in the gym, the rehab center or at the local pub, I was trying to find my person,” he shares — and find her he did.

Sydnor and Jamison went out on their first date on Dec. 1, 2017. They clicked quickly, thanks to what they now see as a natural compatibility. Being an interabled and interracial couple, they come from distinctly dissimilar backgrounds, and they each experience day-to-day life in ways the other couldn’t entirely relate to, yet there was a common ground over that fact.

“Dating someone who was white was different for me,” says Jamison. “I was very nervous going into our relationship. Like, ‘Would he like me? What are the differences there?’ There’s a lot of cultural differences, too, in how we were raised.”

She adds, “I think there was that connection there that I think drew me to him. [We] understand dealing with challenges … and moments where we felt like minorities. I liked that we could talk about our different adversities and bond over that.”

In the early days of their relationship, long before they got engaged in July 2019 and married in November 2020, both Sydnor and Jamison fielded questions from those close to them. Their family and friends were very curious about the experience of being in an interabled relationship. They wanted to know what they did for fun and how their typical routine played out.

About four months after they started seeing each other, Jamison suggested it might be easier to explain how their lives looked if they documented it in YouTube videos for their loved ones. Sydnor didn’t need much convincing to get on board with the plan, but neither he nor Jamison expected to garner a social media following close to the 1.2 million subscribers their channel, Roll with Cole and Charisma, has today.

“We didn’t have the idea to make this our career. We had no idea,” says Jamison, who boasts over 430,000 Instagram followers on her own account. “We posted for about three months, and the momentum just took off.”

At the time when they started creating content online, Jamison was still working at Sheltering Arms and enrolled in occupational therapy school soon after. Sydnor, who has 280,000 Instagram followers of his own, was launching a business with a friend from college, but he pivoted once he realized the type of traction the YouTube channel was getting.

“It was encouraging us to go out and do things and just try new things,” Sydnor recalls. “I wanted to break out of my shell, because I had put myself in one for so long, and I was tired of it. I wanted to go live life, and this seemed like a great opportunity.”

Social media has since become both of their full-time jobs. They’ve continued to document their lives and adventures together, and they dedicate a significant amount of other content to debunking misconceptions about interracial and interabled relationships. Sydnor and Jamison know that historically, couples like themselves have been underrepresented in media, and they’re taking advantage of the open doors of social media.

“Everyone has the power to share their story, and it’s unfiltered, and it’s not being run [by] focus groups. I think movies, they’re going to put a non-disabled actor in a wheelchair and they’re going to make sure they cut out all the ugly parts,” Sydnor says. “We get to share our lives exactly how we want to, and people are relating and connecting to that representation.”

Jamison also emphasizes the importance of educating people about spinal cord injuries — how they can happen at any time and one’s life and change their world forever. They have several series of videos to address that, like Sydnor’s list of “Things I Wish I Knew Before I Broke My Neck.”

“When Cole had his injury, there was so much he didn’t know. It was such a change, like a whole 180, where he had to learn everything,” says Jamison. “If people just knew a little bit of information, maybe it would stop them from diving unknowingly into water where they can’t see the bottom. Or it would help them better transition to their new life if they did acquire an injury, because they knew what to expect. They knew how to deal with this challenge. They knew what challenges were going to come.”

Cole Sydnor became a quadriplegic in August 2011, when he was just a teenager. He sustained a spinal cord injury after a misjudged dive into Virginia’s James River, leaving him without functionality from the chest down.

Sydnor has been in a wheelchair for nearly a decade and a half. His life changed in an instant, but it also went on. He adjusted his routine to the circumstances of his disability, relearning how to do everything from going to school to going to the gym. In fact, it was through the latter that changed his life again — this time, for the better.

While living in Virginia, he worked out at the Sheltering Arms Institute rehabilitation facility. He used the space as a gym, tapping the assistance of trained employees when needed, depending on the type of exercise he was doing. “I can’t go to Crunch Fitness,” Sydnor, now 30, tells PEOPLE.

In 2017, his path crossed with Charisma Jamison, an inpatient therapist working at Sheltering Arms. Looking back, she emphasizes how much she never walked into the facility expecting to do anything beyond helping her patients. She wasn’t looking for a date or even any close friends, necessarily, especially since most of the people she worked with were a decent number of years older than her.

“I did not think I would meet someone my age, and then I’m not going to work thinking I’m going to meet someone to date, either. I’m just going to work to help people get back to their daily life,” Jamison, now 31, recalls. Meanwhile, Sydnor admits he had a completely different perspective.

“Everywhere I went, I was looking for my life partner. So whether it was in the gym, the rehab center or at the local pub, I was trying to find my person,” he shares — and find her he did.

Sydnor and Jamison went out on their first date on Dec. 1, 2017. They clicked quickly, thanks to what they now see as a natural compatibility. Being an interabled and interracial couple, they come from distinctly dissimilar backgrounds, and they each experience day-to-day life in ways the other couldn’t entirely relate to, yet there was a common ground over that fact.

“Dating someone who was white was different for me,” says Jamison. “I was very nervous going into our relationship. Like, ‘Would he like me? What are the differences there?’ There’s a lot of cultural differences, too, in how we were raised.”

She adds, “I think there was that connection there that I think drew me to him. [We] understand dealing with challenges … and moments where we felt like minorities. I liked that we could talk about our different adversities and bond over that.”

In the early days of their relationship, long before they got engaged in July 2019 and married in November 2020, both Sydnor and Jamison fielded questions from those close to them. Their family and friends were very curious about the experience of being in an interabled relationship. They wanted to know what they did for fun and how their typical routine played out.

About four months after they started seeing each other, Jamison suggested it might be easier to explain how their lives looked if they documented it in YouTube videos for their loved ones. Sydnor didn’t need much convincing to get on board with the plan, but neither he nor Jamison expected to garner a social media following close to the 1.2 million subscribers their channel, Roll with Cole and Charisma, has today.

“We didn’t have the idea to make this our career. We had no idea,” says Jamison, who boasts over 430,000 Instagram followers on her own account. “We posted for about three months, and the momentum just took off.”

At the time when they started creating content online, Jamison was still working at Sheltering Arms and enrolled in occupational therapy school soon after. Sydnor, who has 280,000 Instagram followers of his own, was launching a business with a friend from college, but he pivoted once he realized the type of traction the YouTube channel was getting.

“It was encouraging us to go out and do things and just try new things,” Sydnor recalls. “I wanted to break out of my shell, because I had put myself in one for so long, and I was tired of it. I wanted to go live life, and this seemed like a great opportunity.”

Social media has since become both of their full-time jobs. They’ve continued to document their lives and adventures together, and they dedicate a significant amount of other content to debunking misconceptions about interracial and interabled relationships. Sydnor and Jamison know that historically, couples like themselves have been underrepresented in media, and they’re taking advantage of the open doors of social media.

“Everyone has the power to share their story, and it’s unfiltered, and it’s not being run [by] focus groups. I think movies, they’re going to put a non-disabled actor in a wheelchair and they’re going to make sure they cut out all the ugly parts,” Sydnor says. “We get to share our lives exactly how we want to, and people are relating and connecting to that representation.”

Jamison also emphasizes the importance of educating people about spinal cord injuries — how they can happen at any time and one’s life and change their world forever. They have several series of videos to address that, like Sydnor’s list of “Things I Wish I Knew Before I Broke My Neck.”

“When Cole had his injury, there was so much he didn’t know. It was such a change, like a whole 180, where he had to learn everything,” says Jamison. “If people just knew a little bit of information, maybe it would stop them from diving unknowingly into water where they can’t see the bottom. Or it would help them better transition to their new life if they did acquire an injury, because they knew what to expect. They knew how to deal with this challenge. They knew what challenges were going to come.”