Sir Guttmann was born on July 3, 1899, in Tost, Germany (now Toszek in Poland), belonged to an Orthodox Jewish family. Guttmann started studying medicine in the year 1918 at the University of Breslau and later took an MD degree in the year 1924. Until 1928, he worked with Europe’s leading neurologist Professor Otfrid Foerster and in the year 1928, he was invited to start a neurosurgical unit in Hamburg.
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After a year he was called back to Breslau as the first assistant of Foerster and remained there until 1933 when the Nazis forced all Jews to leave the Aryan Hospitals. Then he worked as a neurologist in the Jewish Hospital in Breslau and later in the year 1937 he was elected Medical Director of the hospital.
Later with his wife and two children, Guttmann fled outside Germany and despite not knowing English, they headed for England. There he busied himself in various research projects and worked at Radcliffe Infirmary and St Hugh’s College Military Hospital for the treatment of head injuries.
As the world war progressed, the Government decided to open a special spinal ward for the treatment of paralyzed serviceman, and Guttmann was the Director of the new unit – the National Spinal Injury Centre at the Emergency Medical Services Hospital at Stoke Mandeville. He accepted the post and put a condition that he would treat patients as per his theories, with no interference.
In 1944, the new Spinal Unit was opened and Dr Guttmann was at the helm. For most of the patients, injuries were not life-threatening, it was the complications such as bedsore and urinary tract infections.
Guttmann strongly believed that sports has the power to change lives, and used sports as an integral part of therapy for those with physical disability and believed that it would help them to build physical strength and self-respect.
The first sport used by Guttmann as a part of therapy was a hybrid form of wheelchair polo and hockey and a decade later the sport was completely integrated into the hospital routine, both for its therapeutic and rehabilitative value.
On 29 July 1984, Guttmann organized an archery contest for World War II veteran patients with spinal cord injury – the ‘1948 Wheelchair Games’. These games were organized coinciding with the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. 16 patients (14 men and two women) participated in the games from Stoke Mandeville and the Star and Garter Home for Injured War Veterans in Surrey. The game was won by The Stars and Garter Home.
This was the first recorded competition between disabled athletes and from here the Paralympics was born.
After the first successful event, Dr Guttmann made it an annual spectacle and later it became “Stoke Mandeville Games.” More games were added to the competition and over the years the games were famous in the different spinal hospitals in the country. The first international competition at Stoke Mandeville was occurred in the summer of 1952 and the year 1956 there more nearly 18 nations, which participated in the tournament. In the same year, the Fearnley Cup was presented at the Stoke Mandeville Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
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In the year 1980s, the Paralympics Movement saw rapid growth. In 1988 the first official title Paralympics Games took place shortly after the end of the Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea. In the year 1989, the International Paralympics Committee (IPC) was officially established.
The word Paralympics was derived from the Greek preposition ‘Para’ and Olympics, which meant that the Paralympics are “parallel” games to Olympics.
Dr Guttmann is not only the “Father of Paralympics” but also became the President of the ISMGF and also founded the British Sports Association for the Disabled in 1961. In the same year, he also became the President of the International Medical Society of Paraplegia (now known as the International Spinal cord Society).
Dr Guttmann died on March 18, 1980, of heart failure following an early heart attack.