Recently, AAD and T Minus Five joined
together to host the second annual Amputee Ski Weekend in McCall, Idaho. AAD patients Tom
Seibert, Connor Howe and Bernie Diamond (left) along with Dan Conyers were among the
participants. Skiers were provided adaptive equipment donated by
AWeSOMe, Adaptive Wilderness Sports of McCall along with instructors. Skiers and
snow boarders arrived from California, Texas, Oregon, Arkansas,
Idaho, and Utah to participate.
The AWeSOMe group at Brundage Mountain in McCall, Idaho
has been working for years to bring recreational opportunities to local
residents, mostly youngsters diagnosed with autism, cerebral palsy and other medical
conditions. The Ski Weekend event attracted teens, adults and retirees with
upper and lower limb amputation.
Mary Seibert, founder of T Minus Five
organized the event. The Seibert family founded T Minus 5 after their son, Tom,
lost a hand in a wakeboarding accident as a teen. The name of the group stands
for “Tom minus his 5 fingers” and represents Tom’s
desire to continue in his pursuit of an active outdoor lifestyle.
What a fun weekend and awesome event! It is really quite
motivating and you see some extremely dedicated individuals persevering
through exceptionally difficult hills and waves. I was able to reach my $2,500
dollar goal for Challenged Athletes Foundation.
Alexandra Paul from the tv show Baywatch, Floyd Landis of Tour de France fame were a few of the participating stars!
They honored several soldiers - Operation Rebound, a few national and international challenged athletes, and some pretty cute kids at the opening ceremonies.
As for the event and our team:
Vivian
Yip, an OT from LA Shriner’s CAPP, was our swimmer and she completed
her 1.2 mile open water swim in about 33 minutes! She then decided she
wanted to see how much of the run she could complete… turns out she was
able to complete the whole thing in 2:30!!
I completed the run and
finished around 2:10. But no knee pain and my legs have not been
screaming at me too bad. My mission is to do this event every year
until my body decides otherwise.
BJ
was our biker… she basically agreed to do the bike portion after the
original biker for our team had to back out… 9 days before the event!
BJ did not train at all, but still completed 35 of the 56 miles… most
of it uphill. She mentioned there was a random “superman” guy on the
course, that was biking up and down one gnarly hill in particular
checking on some of his teammates… he offered to give her a little push
to finish the last part of the hill. BJ is now hooked on this event and vowed to complete the 56 miles next year!
Thanks
again everyone for the donations, kind texts, emails and phone calls
before/during/after the event. If there is anyone out there that would
be interested in doing this event one year, let me know… it is amazing
weather, beautiful scenery, very inspirational athletes and it is for a
good cause!
"I saw this leg come off," he said. "It came up and flew over me and splattered me with blood everywhere."
"And
this one," he added, pointing to his damaged left leg, "one bone was
sticking out from the leg that way and one the other way, and
everything was shredded."
Flowers recalled the violent day while
holding a golf club at the driving range on a gorgeous, peaceful autumn
morning at Woodmont Country Club, not from the Walter Reed Army Medical
Center. He has been at Walter Reed for six months, ever since
triggering a booby trap while trying to clear a weapons cache in what
he described as "a little crappy house" near Bagram, Afghanistan.
Flowers
and about a half-dozen other amputee veterans from Walter Reed took
swings at the driving range for about an hour, then played a couple of
holes in the afternoon as part of a program called "First Swing." Some
of the veterans were returning to a game they love. Some were trying it
for the first time. All had recently lost at least one limb while
serving their country.
Flowers sat in a specially designed golf
cart, called a SoloRider. Operated with hand controls, the cart's seat
swiveled so that he could remain strapped in place while addressing the
ball. The 29-year-old Air Force staff sergeant, who used to play four
or five times a week back home in Diamondhead, Miss., was on a course
for the first time since his injury.
"I can't get a full shoulder
turn," he said after hitting a ball about 100 yards downrange on one of
his first attempts. "But it's not bad. I just don't have the distance,
but other than that I'm making contact with the ball. I'm used to
playing with some better clubs. It's not a big deal. I don't care what
they give me, just as long as I'm hitting the ball. I'm extremely happy
they let us come out here."
The program is a joint undertaking by
Disabled Sports USA, the National Amputee Golf Association and the
military. The goal is to give veterans a break from endless stir-crazy
days at Walter Reed, where it can be all too easy to sit in a room and
play video games or succumb to self-pity and depression. Instead they
are shown that sports are not off limits to amputees.
"Some are
really motivated and want to go do everything in every sport," said Kat
Poster of Disabled Sports USA. "Others, it's very hard to get them out
of the hospital. But what we find is we get them on one event, whether
it's a day of golf or a week of skiing, they're hooked. They want to do
more. If they can do one thing, they can do anything."
Other
programs allow Walter Reed veterans the chance to master kayaking,
scuba diving and rock climbing, among other sports. Similar programs
have been set up near other military bases and hospitals around the
country. Veterans are encouraged to bring families along, with the goal
of making sports an option for a family outing once they're done with
rehab and are back in civilian life.
Gabriel Garcia, who brought
his wife, brother and son to Woodmont, needed some persuading to give
golf a try. A strong 27-year-old Army staff sergeant from Yuma, Ariz.,
he was into more physical sports before losing his right arm to a
suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
"I used to be a cage fighter. I
used to do a lot of jujitsu. I used to compete in the army tournaments.
I was the top guy at Fort Hood for my weight class. I was actually
really good. That was my sport," Garcia said. "Golf was never a thing I
liked back in the day, but it's 'Go out here and have a good time.'
It's what I'm going to be doing now. It's one of the sports I can do."
Naturally
right-hand, Garcia had to be convinced that he should play left-handed
instead of trying to hold the club with his prosthetic right arm. He
took several awkward swings, saying "This is weird" before finally
making contact, topping the ball a short distance.
"Twenty yards. Pretty good," he said with a smile to his family. "Lucky bounce."
For
inspiration, Garcia can look to his friend Ramon Padilla, a true
success story. Padilla had never played golf before he arrived at
Walter Reed in July 2007, having lost his left arm when a
rocket-propelled grenade blew up next to him while returning from
patrol in Afghanistan.
David Flowers knew his right leg was gone as soon as he stepped on the mine.
"At first I'm like, 'Are you crazy? I've
only got one hand' or whatever," Padilla said. "They encouraged me to
go, so I went, and as soon as I hit my first good ball, one thing led
to another, and next thing you know I'm out there hitting thousands of
balls."
Padilla played the back nine at Woodmont while the others
were on the driving range. He birdied the par-5 No. 10, the hardest
hole on the course, and feels he can shoot a score in the 80s.
He
helped steady his club with an ingenious homemade apparatus attached to
his prosthetic left arm, something he calls "the pinch hitter." It's a
piece of rubber attached to a huge ball bearing with a piece of a
gasoline hose, and it gives him the flexibility to achieve something
close to a standard two-handed golf swing. It was designed by several
people, including his therapist and prosthetist.
"It's probably going to end up being a marketed thing," he said.
The
34-year-old Padilla spent two years at Walter Reed and retired from the
army last month. Originally from Los Angeles, he is making Maryland his
home with his wife and four children and wants to devote himself
full-time to helping other amputee veterans.
"I feel I've still
got to educate, mentor and support the solders that are coming in
behind me," Padilla said. "That's actually my full-time job right now,
golf as much as I can and take these guys out and show them how to
network out here."
Advanced Arm Dynamics patients in Oregon
become part of a unique flying experience
Five Advanced Arm Dynamics patients participated
in a glider ride adventure last weekend in Hood
River, OR. Sponsored by the Oregon Active Foundation, the
participants each had the opportunity to ride with the glider pilot who
was towed to altitude and then released by the tow-plane for a 30 minute ride.
Some passengers chose to sail quietly, taking in the breathtaking views while
calmly floating through the air. The more daring of the bunch encouraged the
pilot to take twists and turns
before gliding gently back to earth. Riding a sailplane or glider is the
purest form of flying there is.
"I
flew like Superman," said Brendan Mandara (pictured left). "It was more fun than
I could ever imagine."
“
It was the best rollercoaster ride I have ever been on!” commented Lynn
Whitehead (at right).
The
Oregon Active Foundation is a non-profit organization that sponsors active adventures for disabled
individuals.
Ebonee Davis walked up to coach Sekenia Welch in between throws during
last week’s shot put competition at the National District indoor track
and field championships and began pumping her left nub of an arm inside
her shirt.
“My heart beats for you coach,” Davis giggled as her
teammates Elizabeth Ball and Candace Bailey were bent over laughing in
the background.
Meet the Mount Vernon girl’s throwers, a collection of perhaps the silliest and most talented shot putters in the entire region.
The
youngest of the bunch, Davis, a junior who finished fifth with a throw
of 27-feet, eight inches in last week’s district meet to secure a spot
in the Northern Region Championships on Feb. 21, may have the most
remarkable story of them all, though.
Born without more than
half of her left arm due to a birth defect, Davis has somehow made what
many would consider a disability into normality. Her mother was part of
Operation Desert Storm and had to take a pill to flush out her system
before heading to the Middle East. At the time, she didn’t realize she
was pregnant with twins. Davis’s sister was born legally blind, but has
since regained her vision.
According to Welch, Mount Vernon’s
throwing coach, Davis’s condition has its pros and cons in terms of the
shot put. It affects her balance and weight lifting capabilities, but
at the same time she has much better torque on her throws because she
doesn’t have to deal with moving her left arm out of the way.
“Really, it doesn’t affect her much at all, she just goes out there and throws,” said Welch.
“I’m
used to people coming up to me and being like ‘Oh she’s not going to do
nothing,’ but as it went on, they realize I can do stuff. I’m used to
having one hand,” said Davis, who is also “one of the best volleyball
players at Mount Vernon” during the fall, according to her teammate
Ball.
"My daughter, Valerie, loves to be challenged.
I think that is why she found such fulfillment in rhythmic gymnastics.
Because she was born without a left hand, she had to learn how to catch
and toss the rhythmic gymnastic apparatus such as the ribbon, rope, and
clubs wearing a prosthetic arm..."
Fifty amputees attended the 37th Annual One Arm Dove Hunt Friday and Saturday, Sept. 5-6, in Olney. What
started as a joke between Jack Northrup, Jack Bishop and others at the
Cub Drug many years ago has turned into an event that has helped an
enormous number of amputees, and has served to put Olney on the map. This
year, arm amputees and family members came from all across Texas, as
well as from a number of states throughout the U.S. Events included a
golf tournament, trap shoot, horseshoe toss, cow chip chunk’n, meals,
entertainment, an auction and more. READ MORE
Dennis Ithal, tournament chairperson for the National Amputee Golf Association, discusses the challenge of learning to play golf with a disability.
“I’ve been an amputee for 30 years. When I started playing with one arm, it was no different than when my son picked up the first club when he was nine years old,” Ithal says. “I went out and probably shot a 140. So I practiced hitting with one hand and guess what? After 30 years, you get pretty good at it.”
"Tony Odierno will leave his desk at Yankee Stadium on Friday and make
the brief walk to the field to throw the first pitch. He said he
planned to climb the mound, stare at the thousands of fans and then
toss the ball with his right arm — his only arm.
Odierno lost his left arm when a rocket-propelled grenade smashed
through his Humvee in Iraq almost four years ago. As an Army
lieutenant, he was leading three vehicles through southwest Baghdad
when his life changed. The grenade cost Odierno an arm and his driver
his life..." READ MORE
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