Southern Oregon nonprofit offers mobility option for people with disabilities to enjoy the outdoors

In 2017, avid outdoorsman David Hatrick obtained a devastating analysis.

Medical doctors instructed Hatrick he had ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s Illness, and solely a short while to stay.

After the shock wore off, Hatrick resolved to proceed doing the issues he beloved so long as he might, no matter weakening muscle tissues and nerve injury.

However he nonetheless confronted a problem: Methods to hunt or navigate a rocky path in a wheelchair?

The reply was a particular battery-powered wheelchair that makes use of snowmobile-like tracks for wheels, making it able to going rougher locations. Hatrick and a pal, Steve Furst, instantly began to boost the required $20,000.

“It was a giant headache,” Furst mentioned.

The buddies held a rummage sale however solely made $3,000 and have been left with extra stuff on the finish than once they began. So that they modified gears.

“We contacted some wonderful individuals and put collectively a poker event, dinner and public sale occasion and raised sufficient cash for David’s unique observe chair and our youth observe chair,” Furst mentioned.

Hatrick died just a few months after that success. However associates say he’d made it clear he needed different individuals to learn.

“David needed one other individual to have the observe chair,” Furst mentioned. “I mentioned ‘What if we might make it to the place a number of individuals can use the observe chair by borrowing it for a day or every week?’ as a result of observe chairs usually sit in a shed as a result of individuals shouldn’t have a strategy to get them to the locations they want to use them.”

So that they began the nonprofit David’s Chair, which now has seven chairs scattered round Oregon and one in Texas. Folks can flip up with a tow hitch and take a few of them wherever they wish to go. Use of the chairs is free. The nonprofit additionally has two “ParaGolfers,” particular carts that permit a disabled golfer to take a full golf swing.

This previous month, two new chairs have been added in Manzanita and Seaside.

“They invited me (to make use of one) and I ended up driving all of it the best way down from the guests heart … to the seaside,” mentioned Alice Yates, a retired financial institution employee from Nehalem.

She mentioned the chair was straightforward to make use of and an unlimited enchancment over how she used to get her husband out and about.

“My husband was in a wheelchair, however he died earlier than any of those chairs existed,” she mentioned. “I used to get him on the seaside by placing him on a tarp and pulling him down slightly bit, so he might benefit from the sand and stuff.”

David’s Chair goals to keep away from potential indignity and inconvenience for individuals with disabilities by offering powerful, chunky, get-anywhere wheelchairs.

“It’s giving those who sense of freedom once more,” mentioned Dan Haag with the Tillamook Coast Guests Affiliation.

His group helps individuals entry the brand new chair on the Manzanita Guests Middle, only a block off the seaside.

“You sort of take as a right you can transfer by yourself,” mentioned Haag. “However simply the entire concept of getting out on the seaside and transferring with out somebody pushing you, and simply creating that independence.”

The chair is saved in a shed; guests ebook it on-line. It’s camouflaged in inexperienced and brown hues, with tracks that seem like they got here off a small tank.

“I imagine the tracks are just like what are utilized in snow mobiles,” mentioned Haag.

The chair runs on two rechargeable automobile batteries, slightly than an engine, so it’s comparatively quiet and easy to function. Haag mentioned customers simply want to determine the joystick. It must be pushed ahead to go ahead and to both facet to show.

“It’s a kind of issues the place it’s like that is too good to be true as a result of they supply the chair. They increase all of the funds for the chair. They cowl the legal responsibility. They do all the key upkeep, they usually do all of the coaching,” mentioned Haag. “All they require is a spot to retailer it so individuals can test it out.”

The nonprofit is funded by donations, grants and sponsors.

Vacationer locations usually wrestle to make seashores and wilderness areas accessible. However many are working to enhance entry. Tillamook County officers not too long ago purchased 9 wheelchairs with fats traction tires and positioned them in parks and close to seashores. Additionally they put in a particular boat launch to assist individuals with disabilities get out and in of kayaks.

Haag mentioned the brand new chairs are one other transfer in the precise path to make sure everybody has entry to out of doors recreation alternatives. “We all know there’s nonetheless a protracted strategy to go,” he mentioned.

Over the subsequent few years, David’s Chair hopes to put extra units at American Legions, VFWs and Elks Lodges, so extra younger individuals and veterans can take them into nature to hunt and fish.

The chairs will be booked at davidschair.org.