Courtesy Photo | Veteran Arlene Magee Turner competes in the bowling event at the National Veteran...... read more read more
DALLAS - The calm days following Hurricane Andrew were certainly a welcomed sight by most, but for Veteran Arlene Magee Turner, the 1992 catastrophe merely marks the beginning of a series of life-changing events.
Turner joined the Navy in 1985 as an unrestricted line officer spending much of her time in San Diego as a training officer for VS-41, an anti-submarine training squadron, and later as a facilities manager charged with housing and keeping track of hundreds of new sailors at the southern California naval training facility.
“I did everything but cut the checks,” Turner said jokingly referring to the plethora of hats she wore at VS-41.
Her final U.S. Navy assignment brought her to New Orleans where she was the administrative officer at the Navy Air Logistics Office there. By the end of August, 1992, Hurricane Andrew had ravaged South Florida and ripped through New Orleans—disrupting much of the region.
Following the storm, Turner was on her way to Baton Rouge to return a car she rented after hers broke down, but unfortunately, an unexpected event prevented her from doing so, and in a literal blink of an eye, changed the course of her life.
“It was a 45 minute drive…didn’t make it,” Turner said. "An 18-wheeler crossed into my lane…didn’t see me.”
The accident occurred while she was driving a on a bridge.
“I went underneath the 18-wheeler of all things,” Turner said.
After the 18-wheeler dragged her down the bridge’s roadway for some distance, she wasn’t aware of the damage to her vehicle or her body.
“I didn’t even know I had broken my back.”
Twenty years has passed since that tragic accident in Louisiana that put Turner in a wheelchair, but a new series of challenges surfaced five years ago that changed her life…again.
Turner had been seen at the Atlanta VA Medical Center (VAMC) for the past 15 years for issues related to her paralysis, but she and her three children now began to notice her memory fading.
“My short-term memory was gone and my long-term memory was nothing to be proud of,” Turner said.
In conjunction with her memory loss, the past several years dealt Turner a series of burdensome health issues and other misfortunes that would test her and her three children.
“When I say everything could go wrong, we had a tsunami,” Turner said of a battle with fresh panic attacks that reached back to the car accident she tried so hard to rid herself of—eventually leading her to the Atlanta VAMC mental health team more than two and a half years ago.
"I’d wake up in my sleep and think I was still in that car,” Turner said.
Five months ago Turner was on her way to her mental health appointment, and, coincidentally, cross paths with Chauncy Rozier, the VAMC’s recreational therapist and adaptive sports coordinator, who was building a team of disabled Veteran patients willing to participate in the upcoming National Veteran Wheelchair Games in Dallas June 21-26, 2015.
“Once I get them to stop by my office and I provide them more information, then I know I have a new person to come into the fold,” Rozier explained.
Turner quickly decline Rozier’s offer citing everything from being too old to not possessing any of the right equipment.
“I didn’t even own a pair of tennis shoes,” Turner confessed.
“You should go. It will change your life,” Rozier said.
Rozier followed her all the way to her appointment on the fourth floor and before she knew it had submitted an application packet for the games.
“The goal of the National Veterans Wheelchair Games is to include novices…so this is my way of bringing them in,” Rozier said.
So it was official—she was heading to Dallas to compete alongside 15 other athletes representing the Atlanta VAMC and nearly 700 other veterans from across the nation.
“I had three months to whip myself into some kind of shape.”
Whip herself into shape she did, but she didn’t do it alone. Fellow wheelchair athlete and team partner Jonathan Tubbs, who also competed in the wheelchair games, along with his wife, were instrumental in her rookie debut at the games.
“They called me every single day,” said Turner of both Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs, who provided her with a level of mentoring and motivation for the three months prior to the games. “And I did it…with God’s help.”
“That was like my Susan Komen 3-Day,” Turner said as she tearfully related her journey to the annual event celebrating breast cancer survivors’ accomplishments. “It marked the beginning of the end of a really horrible time—a time that lasted seven years for me.”
Turner earned a gold medal in air pistol shooting and bowling. “I almost had a bronze in basketball,” Turner added.
Turner was especially impressed by the number of Veteran volunteers who were present to support the games who come each year to support the competitors.
“That was probably the most awesome thing I’ve done in a long time,” Turner said.
One would think that air pistol shooting would come natural to a seasoned U.S. naval officer like herself, but that she said that’s a misconception.
“If I was in the Army…yes,” she said.
Turner confessed that during her military service, she didn’t have an opportunity to fire individual weapons.
“Oh no, we shot stuff to blow up the whole place,” Turner chuckled.
“I had to find new ways to cope with stress,” Turner said. “This is the new normal for me and I’m a lot happier.”
During the games, 16 adaptive sports athletes representing the Atlanta VAMC earned a total of 30 medals collectively during the games.
| Date Taken: | 07.21.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.22.2015 07:46 |
| Story ID: | 170728 |
| Location: | DALLAS, TX, US |
| Hometown: | ATLANTA, GA, US |
| Web Views: | 251 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Navy veteran overcomes adversity, wins gold at wheelchair games, by Eric Brown, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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