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Jim Troesh knows that most people don’t turn on their televisions expecting to see a voluptuous bikini model tossing grapes into the mouth of a quadriplegic. He also knows that young people with disabilities don’t usually put “television star” at the top of their lists of potential careers. He’s determined to change both. Troesh, most famous for his role as the quadriplegic attorney on Highway to Heaven, is the writer, director, and star of The Hollywood Quad, a TV comedy pilot which he hopes will be snatched up and made into a series in the near future. He spoke recently with a Disaboom writer.

Troesh became disabled after a fall at age 14. Says Jim, “I was putting up an antenna on my friend’s roof, on a tower he had. And I had climbed up to the top of this tower and was putting up this antenna, not realizing that electricity could actually jump off the high voltage wire that was about five feet away from me. I thought you actually had to touch it. So it jumped onto the antenna, and that threw me off the tower. I bounced on the roof and then into some bushes, and that’s when my neck got broken at C4/5.”

As a newly disabled teenager, Troesh didn’t envision himself going on to become a well-known actor. “I couldn’t see doing anything. You know, I got suicidal, and all of that stuff that happens, cause you know, I’m a teenager and quadriplegic at the same time.” Jim’s main concerns after acquiring his disability were, “Getting high and watching cartoons… I finished high school, but after that, I just did that and I kind of drifted back into college and I took classes that I could still get high in. Film classes, where you just watch movies.”