http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6463973

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Superman" actor Christopher Reeve, paralyzed when he fell
from a horse nine years ago, has died in a New York hospital of heart failure,
his publicist said on Monday.

Reeve, 52, went into a coma on Saturday when he suffered a heart attack during
treatment for an infected pressure wound and died in Northern Westchester
Hospital on Sunday afternoon without regaining consciousness, publicist Wesley
Combs told reporters.

Reeve's wife Dana issued a statement thanking "the millions of fans around the
world who have supported and loved my husband over the years."

Reeve, confined to a wheelchair since his riding accident in 1995, had in recent
years campaigned for the rights of the disabled and for stepped-up research into
the treatment of spinal cord injuries.

Reeve's family asked that donations be made in his honor to the Christopher
Reeve Paralysis Foundation, formed in 1999 to boost collaboration between
experts working on treatments for spinal cord damage.

An accomplished rider who owned several horses, Reeve suffered multiple injuries
including two shattered neck vertebrae when he was thrown from his horse at an
equestrian event in Commonwealth Park in Virginia.

Doctors initially predicted that he would never have any feeling or movement
below his head. But his foundation's Web site, www.ChristopherReeve.org, said he
had experienced a degree of recovery that his doctors considered "remarkable."

BORN IN NEW YORK