Andrew ("Drew") I. Batavia (June 15, 1957 – January 6, 2003) was a disability rights activist, health policy researcher, author, and associate professor at Florida International University who, at the age of 16, sustained a spinal cord injury. He earned a JD from Harvard Law School and an MS in health services research from Stanford University Medical School, and as a White House Fellow (1990) worked under Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to draft regulations for the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2002, he co-founded Autonomy, Inc., to represent persons with disabilities who wanted choices and control over their lives, including the choice to end it for those with disabilities who were terminally ill. Early life Batavia was born at Beth-El Hospital (now Brookdale) in Brooklyn and lived in the Italian-Jewish neighborhood of Bensonhurst on 80th street until he was eight years old. In 1966, the family moved to Yonkers, New York, where he attended fourth grade at Public School 21. Later he attended Lincoln High School and in May 1973, at age 15, completed the Yonkers Marathon. Car accident and physical rehabilitation In the summer of 1973, at age 16, Batavia was hired as a camp counselor for children with intellectual disabilities at Camp Lee Mar in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. On a day off from work in early August, he went to Monticello with two other counselors. At the end of the day, they hitchhiked back to camp. The car that picked them up crashed, and Batavia flew through the front windshield, breaking his neck. He was transported to Wayne County Memorial Hospital in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, but after initial care, he was transferred in mid-August to Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, where his spinal cord injury (at the C2-C3 level) could be better managed. In 1974, following his acute care at Montefiore, he was admitted for physical rehabilitation to the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in the city of New York for almost a year. He was later discharged with a wheelchair to his home in Yonkers, New York, where he completed his senior year at Lincoln High School (1974–75), and was elected co-president of his senior class. Higher education On graduating high school, Batavia matriculated at the University of California, Berkeley, which had a program for disabled students. After one year, he transferred to Strawberry Creek College, a smaller division of the university, which offered a more personal educational