http://www.newsday.com/news/health/the-daily-apple-1.4760551/li-beach-provides-surfing-opportunity-to-quadriplegic-athletes-1.5718457
Ten athletes who have suffered spinal cord injuries will enjoy a day of
surfing Friday, thanks to a national nonprofit agency dedicated to
rehabilitating such injuries.
Empower SCI, founded in 2010, directs an annual two-week residential
rehabilitation program, which this year began on July 14 at Stony Brook
University.
During the span of the program, 10 athletes participate in adaptive
surfing, kayaking, cycling and dance, aquatic and rhythm therapy, a quad
rugby demo game with Jarrett Dreyer and the New York Warriors, yoga and
other sports chair demos. In addition, the athletes receive therapy
with physical therapists, occupational therapists and a rehabilitation
counselor.
This week, through the use of surfboards and in connection with the
Testaverde Fund for Spinal Cord Injury, program participants will have
the opportunity to leave their wheelchairs on the shore and catch some
waves at LI’s Long Beach.
According to Anthony Testaverde, president of the Testaverde Fund, the
surfing event was organized under the motivation of his son Joe, a LI
teen and surfing enthusiast, who was left paralyzed in his hands and
legs after a swimming pool diving accident on July 4, 2000.
Jennifer McCallson, 33, an Empower peer mentor and quadriplegic, was
paralyzed after a gymnastics accident shattered her first and fifth
vertebrae at age 20. She said the surfing event will be a thrill for the
program participants and that being set loose in the ocean is a special
experience.
“The thought of being in the mighty ocean, independent of my
wheelchair, feeling my freed body get splashed by the waves, getting
saltwater up my nose and stinging my eyes, forms a lump in my throat and
brings tears to my eyes,” McCallson said, speaking about the
experience.
President and co-founder of Empower SCI, Carrie Callahan, said another
benefit of surfing is just breaking the conception that it is
impossible.
“It is addictive to help others accomplish things they never dreamed
they could accomplish,” she said. “Surfing is just one [of those things]
that once you break your neck, you think, ‘I could never do that
again.’ And then comes Empower SCI to prove you wrong.”
Callahan said an entirely volunteer staff, which sacrifices their
vacation days in order to make the program run successfully, supports
the Empower SCI curriculum.
“If you are a part of it, you understand that the pay might not be in
cash, but it’s lasting and can be life changing,” Callahan said.
“Empower SCI is about the power of thought, the power of motivation and
the power that one person -- and a group of people -- can bring to each
other. And it’s not just the participants that win in this program --
our volunteers leave the program reinvigorated, with a new passion in
life.”
And what was Callahan‘s spark to starting this special program? Simple:
To provide a life-altering experience, one athlete at a time.
“When someone is trying to cope with a drastic injury like an injury to
the spinal cord, they aren't focused on how to live their life well,”
Callahan continued, “They are focused on survival. And this is the time
that we, as a society, provide them with their most intensive
rehabilitation. Empower SCI is the return to recreation, return to
happiness, return to life.”
The adaptive surfing event will be held Friday, July 19 from 10
a.m. – 3 p.m. at Lido West Beach, off Lido Blvd., one block west of
Marvel Dairy Whip. For more information click here.