by GAIL GOURLEY

It was a sunny, calm, late-June morning on Big Lagoon before the wind kicked up. Sixteen-year-old Garret Wheeler, brain-injured in a surfing accident nearly four years ago, was on a boat, pressing buttons to operate it and cruising around the south lagoon area with a smile that could light up a city.

Garret was, for the first time since his devastating accident, back on the water, and he was taking his family for a ride. [see above photo]

The vessel he was controlling was the HandiCat, creation of Bill Wing, founder and president of Wing Inflatables in Arcata. Wing, whose company manufactures inflatable boats for customers including the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, Boston Whaler and white-water rafting companies, modified an inflatable pontoon vessel to accommodate a wheelchair and to allow those with disabilities to row or to operate the boat's motor either by pressing buttons or by voice activation.

But Wing's involvement with the disabled extends much further than modifying the boat and facilitating Garret Wheeler's recent return to the water. He was one of the founders and is currently the vice president of Disabled Adventure Outfitters, a three-year-old nonprofit corporation that enables people with disabilities to experience a variety of outdoor adventures.

"It's a passion for me now," said Wing, 45, about his commitment to the organization.

Bret Leach and Bill Wing head for shore.

Like so many inspired ideas, the spark that generated DAO occurred around a campfire. That was about three and a half years ago, when Wing and co-founder Bret Leach of Salyer were at a river camp discussing disabilities in general, and specifically how important it was for Leach, as a disabled person, to get out on the river. Leach, 43, president of DAO, has hemophilia -- a hereditary disease that prevents normal blood clotting, resulting in sometimes uncontrolled bleeding. He is at times on crutches or in a wheelchair due to internal joint bleeding.

For years, Leach had brought people with hemophilia from the San Francisco Bay area and central California up here to do river trips with Wing. "Bill would put together guides and a trip for us," said Leach, who acted then as the "gatherer."

Since then, Leach, as a counselor and then a director for summer camps for hemophiliacs, says he saw a need in those camps "for something for the older guys, the teens and older. Some special kind of program that would help them discover that, in fact, the only limits that they have are really limits that other people put on them."

"We were sitting around the campfire and Bill said something to the effect of, `You know, with the number of people with disabilities out there, I can see that they're not getting the river exposure that I'd like to see them get.' I said, `What can we do about that, Bill?' and he said, `I think we should start a foundation.' And from that, Disabled Adventure Outfitters sprang up."

About six months later, Wing, Leach and two others, Kyle Bebb and Steve Keale, each put in $250 to pay for incorporation. "Those were the four people who really came together in the beginning to make it happen," said Leach.

A group of adult hemophiliacs by the river.

The nonprofit organization serves people with a wide variety of disabilities, "everything from multiple sclerosis to cancer," said Leach. The activities DAO provides can be for individuals, as in Garret's case, or for groups of children or adults ranging from one-day river trips to week-long adventure camps. This summer alone, the events have included a camp for hemophiliac teens, a river float in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management for 43 pediatric cancer patients from Mercy Hospital in Redding and their families, and another river expedition with developmentally disabled adults.

The camps and other activities, such as taking Garret out on the lagoon, are at no charge to the participants (except for, in some cases, a minimal registration fee).

During a recent camp for hemophiliac teens, 15 boys (hemophilia affects mostly males) ages 13 to 17 spent a week based at Rainbow Lake near Burnt Ranch. The lake is on private property owned by Eleanor Jones, who charges only a nominal fee for DAO's use of the camp. "She's been very gracious," said Wing. "We're hoping to get our own spot someday but she's been great for the kids and the adults."

Wing had a unique way to get the camp started -- a kind of ice-breaker for the boys. He happens to have recently acquired at auction a surplus fire truck from the City of South San Francisco. He drove the working pumper truck home to Kneeland a few months ago, and then brought it out for the camp. After the initial group talk where the rules were set up, Wing said, "We got everybody on top of the fire truck and got everybody wet ... it was a good way to start it off."

Breaking the ice with Wing's new firetruck.

Camp activities are water-focused, including white-water rafting and river-wide swims. "We take them down class III and IV rapids," said Leach, emphasizing that the campers also learn river safety and rescue techniques. "They spend a lot of time in the water."

They also do rock jumping. "They were jumping from a 12-foot rock into a pool ... We challenge them in a safe manner. They're doing things that they probably never imagined that they would do," Leach said.

A nurse at the camp teaches them how to care for themselves and takes care of them "if there's a bleed, which happened on this trip," Wing said.

"She was all over it, taking care of it and giving the right medications. I was amazed at the group medication talk, how they were saying, `I take factor this and that.' In the morning, everybody was injecting the (coagulation) factor to protect themselves for the day. I was impressed by that. We're not ignoring the disability; we're working with it."

After the day's adventures, the group sat around and talked about what they enjoyed and what the challenge was. "They all said, `The rapids were great, and jumping off that rock and getting on that edge and then making that leap.' Some of the kids went to the edge and backed away, walked away. The next day, they went," said Wing.

Leach pointed out that the camp helps the kids with self-empowerment and improves their self-esteem as a result. "The camp really treats them maybe in a way they haven't been treated before," said Leach. "A lot of families tend to become overprotective with people with disabilities and very cautious in what they can do. And society in general tends to put limits, or at least tends to view people with disabilities as being limited in the things that they can do ... So to give these guys this type of opportunity, it's such a positive thing. It's incredible. At the end of camp, the kids are teary-eyed. I'm teary-eyed."

As someone who remembers going to school in a wheelchair and on crutches, Leach understands the issues these kids face. "It made me a stronger person. Those kinds of things will either make or break you," he said.

Treatment of hemophilia was different when Leach was growing up. When he had a problem with one of his legs, it was put in a cast and left on for so long that his leg atrophied. When the cast came off, he and his mother were told he would never walk again. He was 12 years old.

"Fortunately, through the hard work of my mother, bless her heart, she forced me to walk again," Leach said.

"Later on in life therapies became available that allowed me to pre-treat myself, so if I was going to have a high activity level day I could take my medication intravenously, and it would give me protection over a certain amount of time," said Leach.

The unfortunate thing, he said, is in the early `80s he was using a product made from whole blood. "As a result of that I got kind of a double whammy, so not only was I hemophiliac at that point, but because I was being exposed to the blood supply, I then also became an AIDS patient. So I've got a kind of a dual disability."

But the river and the people he's met in its context, he said, have made his life complete. "That's kind of my medicine for my AIDS ... I get in a boat and go out on the river."

Leach also affirmed that he wouldn't be where he was today without his wife of 16 years, Tricia. "She's my other main reason I'm still able to function," he said.

Wing, Leach and others, with their combined commitment to DAO, have several ideas for the future of the organization. They're actively pursuing the resources to begin an all-terrain vehicle program, and they've already begun working with a major ATV manufacturer to obtain a grant for equipment acquisition. "At this point we really don't have (an ATV) program because we don't have the equipment," said Leach. "We've been using our own private stuff for small trips, but until we get a good amount of ATVs we really can't do the program the way we want to do it."

Leach has experienced the thrill and gratification an ATV outing can provide people with disabilities. Hesitant at first, Wing said he finally convinced Leach to give it a try.

"It was like having new legs for me," said Leach. "I can't hike anywhere anymore. My knees are just not in shape to do that, so I had to give that up. The only way I was able to get into the back country was in a Jeep or a truck or something, and even then, you can only get so far."

With the ATV, he said, "I could go places that I couldn't ever walk to and oh, man, I can't tell you the feeling that gave me. And then, like Bill, I wanted to give that feeling to somebody else."

"Bret's situation isn't unique at all," said Wing. "There are a lot of people with limited walking capabilities ... We go on designated trails and we stay on the trails, so we're real cautious about it. But it does give them ability to go into some high mountain areas, and lakes and lookouts."

The design of the HandiCat also allows an ATV to roll onto it for transport across water, providing even more access possibilities. Now in its third generation of design modifications, the HandiCat was profiled in the March 2000 issue of Popular Mechanics and generated inquiries from England based on its flexibility.

Another goal, Leach said, is for DAO to have its own permanent camp on the river, completely handicapped accessible, where they could leave their equipment and start bringing in people from all over the United States. Their dream is for somebody to donate the site, "either undeveloped where we can develop it ourselves, or developed where we can do some modifications to it."

Funding all of the organization's operations depends on donations and grants. "Through the hemophilia connection I was able to talk to some pharmaceutical companies that supply product for people with hemophilia and they've been very nice in supporting us financially," said Leach. "One of our bigger supporters is NuFactor which is a home care company, and they've given us a couple of grants through their program `Always Helping Friends.'"

"We're also involved in working with the Humboldt Area Foundation in obtaining grants to do some rafting trips for some of the other local foundations that serve people with either learning disabilities or physical disabilities," Leach said.

While other groups charge participants for adventure access, he's not aware of any other organization similar to DAO "that raises the money and provides the trip at usually no cost or a minimal registration fee ... I think that sets us way aside."

During roughly that same time period that DAO was first taking shape, Garret and his family were beginning the recovery and rehabilitation process from the Santa Cruz surfing accident in late 1996 that trapped him underwater and resulted in severe brain damage due to the length of time he was without oxygen. He was revived and initially in a coma, and hospitalized for over three months in Santa Cruz and then Long Beach.

Garret splits his time between his father, George Wheeler of McKinleyville, and his mother, Robin Wheeler of Arcata. According to his father, Garret continues to make slow but steady progress, adding that this summer he's starting to sit up unassisted for short periods. "We're all really excited about that," Wheeler said. "We are hoping and praying that he walks someday. That's where we're headed -- we want him back on his feet."

Garret attends Arcata High School part-time, and the website the family has created about his recovery process contains a photo of Garret at his junior prom last winter. The site, www.humboldt1.com/~wheelerg, provides information about Garret's recovery and rehabilitation process and contains several photos.

The paths of Garret and DAO met when one of Garret's caregivers saw an article last October in the Times-Standard describing the HandiCat. She contacted Wing and that led to a dialogue between him and Garret's parents, ultimately resulting in the outing at Big Lagoon.

Garret has a pincer grip in his right hand which enables him to pick things up and push buttons. He can control his own TV remote, for example, Wheeler said, but he still requires others to feed and transport him. And that's one of the most significant things about his outing on the HandiCat.

"It was way cool that Garret could be on the water in a watercraft and control it himself," said Wheeler. "One of the big things that Garret has lost is the ability to do things for himself. There are people who drive him and people who carry him here and carry him there and people who feed him, but he was able to do it himself ... I think the biggest thing for Garret, perhaps, other that just being out, was the fact that he was taking us all for a ride. And that is so rare -- well, it never occurs. And that's a big thing that a person in Garret's situation has to deal with."

"He wanted the boat to go faster," Wheeler added. "He kept pushing the `faster' button!"

"Bill (Wing) has basically put the boat at our disposal and said, `Anytime you want to use it you just let me know.' I was flabbergasted," said Wheeler.

He said another issue has been that Garret would like to have a power chair and that one of the questions has been whether he could operate one. "If he can run a pontoon boat he can run a power chair," said Wheeler. "So he moved a giant step closer to getting himself a power chair by being able to do `left, right, fast, slow.'
Wheeler described Garret's ability to verbalize. "With difficulty he can speak but it takes him a while. It's called expressive aphasia, and he can make sentences of maybe 7 or 8 words, and then he's gotta take a deep breath and think about what he's going to say next. His articulation is quite clear, though. It used to be only family could understand him. Now strangers can understand him as well."

Garret's communication was an emotional experience for Wing as he sat at the stern of the HandiCat that day while Garret pushed the buttons.

"I think he had a really good day," said Wing. "There were smiles all through the boat with the family, and the kids crawling all over. And Garret --could tell by his smile. He was very coherent. I'd say, `Garret, you've gotta start slowing down' and he'd start pushing the `slow' button ... then he'd actually start saying the words."

"I've got him on video with a big grin, and then at the end of the day I said, `You wanna go do this again?' and I could tell he was sincere when he goes, `Yeah.' He tried to say my name. That was big for me." n

Contact Disabled Adventure Outfitters at P.O. Box 152, Arcata, CA 95518; 530-629-1106; pbudha@aol.com. Their Web site is www.specialadventures.org.

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