It's common to hear about angels this time of year, but Richard Clark knows one personally.

She helped him decades ago after a car accident that left him partially paralyzed, and now she has swept in again, delivering an early Christmas present — a motorized wheelchair that offers the 49-year-old former police officer a chance at a better life.

Clark's angel is Ann Jackson, a physical therapist and, after all these years, a friend. The two met at the Rehabilitation Achievement Center in Hazel Crest shortly after Clark's accident in 1991 and formed a bond that would last throughout his rehabilitation and into his adjustment to life in a wheelchair.

"Her help just keeps going and going. She's just always involved," said Clark, who lives with his mother on the South Side. "As soon as something happens, whether it's good or bad, we call and let Ann know. It's become like a partnership."

On Oct. 8, 1991, Clark was a passenger in a friend's car when the vehicle skidded off the highway and rolled. The friend died, and Clark suffered a brain injury that left his legs partially paralyzed.

Clark was put on medical leave and then disability leave, but he longed to return to the streets as a police officer. Jackson recalled how Clark would come to physical therapy wearing his uniform.

"He wanted to treat it like a job," she said. "That helped him stay connected to being a cop."

Clark worked hard on his rehabilitation and was eventually able to pass a firing range test while sitting in his wheelchair. But the Chicago Police Department, like many departments across the country, wouldn't allow officers to use canes, walkers or wheelchairs and required that each person be able to shoot standing up.

His dream of returning to the force was over. In 1997, Clark filed a lawsuit against the city. That suit was settled in 2001, with Clark accepting more than $300,000 and a job as a 911 operator.

"It's good to do something," he said at the time. "We don't always get to choose our circumstances. We just have to live with them."

Clark has held that job ever since, making his way around the 911 call center in a wheelchair that he stayed in day in and day out. But over time his wheelchair began to fall apart, and his body was suffering from his inability to change positions while working long shifts.

"Typically, once somebody has been disabled for 15 or 18 years and their disability is at the level of Richard's, we usually start thinking about conservation of energy, really wanting to help the person to maintain their joint integrity and not blow out their shoulders," Jackson said. "So I said to Richard, 'Why don't you talk to your insurance about a power chair?' He was getting all these blood clots in his legs and having all kinds of problems. Plus it was keeping him from moving out of his mother's house and living more independently."

Clark spent month after frustrating month trying to figure out how he could get his insurance company to cover a motorized wheelchair, but he got nowhere.

Earlier this year, Jackson, who now owns Legacy Healthcare Solutions, caught wind of the trouble Clark was having and, knowing he had a clear physical need for a motorized chair, intervened.

"I had pretty much given up," Clark said. "Then all of a sudden I hear Ann Jackson is coming over with a man from the wheelchair company. They came right over and did an assessment at my house."

Through her work as a therapist, Jackson knew the right people to call. It still took several months, but working with United Seating & Mobility of Lombard she was able to find the right manufacturer — Permobil — who could provide a chair that fit Clark's needs and then make sure that every piece of that chair could be justified to Clark's insurance company.

"Sure enough, about the first of November, Richard got a letter that the chair had been approved," Jackson said. "And around the beginning of December, we went over and delivered the chair. It was exciting. It was a powerful moment."

And it changed everything.

"Now I'm not aching all the time," Clark said. "I can raise my legs up, I don't have to worry about the blood clotting. I have a lot more freedom. I went to the mall to Christmas shop!"

Again, Clark's angel had delivered. But the angel-patient relationship is clearly symbiotic.

"This guy will get up at 2:30 in the morning, do everything he needs to do, get on the bus in his wheelchair and go to work, sometimes for 10, 12, 14 hours a day," Jackson said. "He says, 'Ann, I've got to take care of myself, I've got to provide.' So my job is super-easy. I'm just so thankful to see somebody like that."

Jackson, 47, paused for a moment to consider the once-broken man she met more than 20 years ago.

"His personal fortitude is remarkable," she said. "I tell him, 'Richard, you're my hero, because most of us couldn't have preserved through half of this stuff.' "

rhuppke@tribune.com