Accessibility to recreation is a big issue for many returning vets

Most people with disabilities are not born with them; 4 out of 5 become disabled after adolescence.

Without warning, a routine day in Iraq suddenly turned into hell for Army Sergeant Rob Wentworth. On June 27, 2007, Wentworth was guarding a police station near Bayji when a suicide bomber drove up to the front gate and exploded a 2,000-pound car bomb. The attack killed more than 100 Iraqi civilians and police. Wentworth, standing behind a cement wall 100 feet away, was blown 25 feet through a metal garage door. He survived, with back, knee, and ankle injuries, as well as a traumatic brain injury.

Still on active duty, Wentworth is back in the States, assigned to the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, where he helps other vets recover from the effects of injuries incurred in the line of duty.

Wentworth is one of hundreds of thousands of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan with temporary or permanent disabilities ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to lost limbs. A recent report from the Rand Corporation concluded that nearly 20 percent of the 1.64 million veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan reported a probable traumatic brain injury during deployment.

In part, their survival is the product of advances in medicine and treatment techniques yielding incredible battlefield results. Ninety percent of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan now survive their wounds, up from 76 percent as late as the Gulf War just over a decade ago.

That undeniably positive statistic masks a reality. These men and women come home hoping to return to simple pleasures they left behind. To enjoy a stroll in the woods. To hunt. To fish. To play competitive sports. To romp with their kids.

That's certainly how it was with Wentworth. "There's not a lot of woods and water in Iraq or Afghanistan and, coming back and not having to worry about a roadside bomb or a sniper, and just being able to chill out with some guys fishing or hunting, you know, it's huge," says Wentworth.

Advocates agree it's hard to overstate the therapeutic value of recreation for people with disabilities. "Oh, my God, it's the best thing going," says Roger McCarville, host of the public television show,"Disabilities Today." "You know, the physical therapist may say, 'Okay, lift this thing up 20 times and I'll be back.' But if you're in recreational therapy, they say, 'Get in that wheelchair, sit next to me, play basketball, and I'm going to try to whip your ass.' It's very psychological and I think it gets you back to where you want to be."

Rick Briggs, Wentworth's supervisor at the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, says just being outdoors is a big boost for returning vets. "For anybody who's enjoyed things like hunting or fishing, all the stresses of life seem to take a back seat when they get out into nature," says Briggs, a retired Air Force major. "Just getting to the outdoors where they can get back at peace with themselves, and with nature, and kind of escape from the clutter of life, I think there's an enormous therapeutic value to it."

One of society's challenges is to help make recreation accessible to people with disabilities, or at least to remove barriers that stand in the way. The solutions are as varied as the problems. They're as simple as easing restrictions that keep disabled hunters from entering the fields and woods. Or as complex as sea changes in the way we design our public places.

Some examples:
Before he left for Iraq, Sergeant Wentworth, like many other veterans, was an avid hunter. He shipped home in late October in time to catch the end of Michigan's bow-hunting season for deer. His injuries allowed him to sit in a deer stand, but left him without the strength to pull back a bow. An easy solution would have been to shoot with a crossbow, but Michigan's hunting rules prohibit their use because of the perception that crossbows provide an unfair advantage. Not surprisingly, Briggs takes exception to that logic. "I think it's short-sighted on some people's part to think we would give somebody an advantage by allowing them a mechanism to help overcome their disabilities," Briggs says. He adds that a Department of Natural Resources advisory council on disabilities, on which he sits, is talking with the DNR about modifying that restriction.

The same advisory council is about to recommend a change to another rule that has had unintended consequences for people with disabilities. Michigan regulations prevent hunting from a motorized vehicle. Few reasonable people would argue against such a restriction. But here's the catch. Although advances in technology have led to development of all-terrain wheelchairs, the DNR considers the electric versions to be motorized vehicles, and their use by disabled hunters therefore is prohibited.

Advisory council member Scot Severn says the restriction dilutes the experience for disabled hunters. "When we've done these disabled bird hunts you actually have to have somebody else walking beside you to carry your gun and it just kind of ruins the experience for the hunter," says Severn, who is also the Sports Director for the Michigan Paralyzed Veterans of America. The advisory council on disabilities is recommending an exception to the rule for personal mobility devices. If approved, the change would allow people with disabilities to enjoy the same hunting experience as those who are able bodied.

Both McCarville and Severn say advances in adaptive equipment are making it possible for people with disabilities to do things that would have been considered impossible just a few years ago. Severn, who was recently inducted into the Athletes with Disabilities Hall of Fame, bowls and hunts from a chair and plays on a quad rugby team that recently finished eighth out of 45 teams nationally.

McCarville lost the use of his legs several years ago but remains physically active in basketball and other sports. He says lightweight sports chairs in particular have made a big difference. "What they can do today, it's unbelievable," he says. McCarville, who is a golfer, says that last year he shot an eagle from a single-rider golf cart, equipped with a seat that swivels to allow the golfer to address the ball from the cart. In Oakland County, all county-run golf courses offer the use of a single-rider cart for golfers with disabilities, but they require several day's advance notice.

Communities across the nation are awakening to new concepts for making public places accessible to people of all abilities, using universal design principles, which create places enjoyed in the same manner by as many people as possible.

Universal design encourages design by innovation rather than regulation. It challenges planners to consider a single design that works for everyone, rather than features that need to be added to meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act or other regulations. Under this concept park trails are built with surfaces that are hard and wide enough to be accessed by people using wheelchairs. Interpretive signs anticipate the needs of people with visual or cognitive disabilities. Everyone enters and exits through the same route. When done successfully, the result is public places that are inclusive, designed from the outset to accommodate the abilities of all users.

A $15 million initiative from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is making recreation more accessible for people with disabilities in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. Called Access to Recreation, the grants offer matching funds to communities, parks departments, and state agencies that use universal design principles to build new facilities, or renovate existing ones to make them accessible to people of all abilities.

The Access to Recreation projects open new opportunities for veterans and others with temporary or permanent disabilities to remain physically active. Such advances will assume increasing importance as our population ages, because few of us are permanently able bodied. Steve Gilliland of the Harrison County (Indiana) Community Foundation sees accessibility as an issue that affects everyone. "You know, grannies and grandpas who want to take their kids to the state park have trouble getting around. It's not just a 'folks with disabilities' issue. It is a community issue because, sooner or later, God willing, we will all get to that point where getting around is a little tougher."

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