With the summer heat comes more families spending days on the beach. Barking Sands Fire and Emergency Services (BSF&ES) wants to help the community in a way other than casualty response. By partnering with Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR), BSF&ES has been able to introduce the beach wheelchair program to give back to our disabled patrons.
Ryan Kooser, a BSF&ES firefighter and paramedic, is the lead for this program and shared his thought process behind starting it.
“I noticed a young boy that was wheelchair bound at Shenanigans (the base restaurant) and his family was down at the beach while he was posted up on the deck,” Kooser said, “I noticed, also, the potential for disabled veterans and their families to rent one of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) cottages. They are on the hottest, widest beach on the island and it is kind of the same thing as the boy at Shenanigans.”
The beach wheelchair is a specialized wheelchair with oversized, soft, inflated wheels that make movement on the sand easier. It is fitted to accommodate for paraplegic and quadriplegic injuries. The benefit of this program is to assist disabled veterans staying at the Americans with Disabilities Act approved beach cottages as well as the ‘Ohana of PMRF personnel with disabilities.
“It just felt like the right thing to do,” Kooser said, “To partner with MWR to facilitate the purchase of the chair for recreational use.”
It is completely free for patrons to rent the beach wheelchair. Reservations are made through MWR, who will collaborate with BSF&ES. Fire department personnel will transport the wheelchair to Majors Bay or to Shenanigans and assist the patron from their street wheelchair into the beach wheelchair. They will also help the patron and their family to a safe zone on the beach. Once on the beach, they will speak to the family about beach and water safety to ensure that they have a fun and safe beach day that otherwise may not have been able to happen.
“I used to use these when I worked for city of Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue to Ocean Rescue,” Kooser said, “We had two sets of beach wheelchairs and it was just awesome to see the reaction of not just the person who was wheelchair bound, but the family members as well.”
The beach wheelchair program plans to expand as more people start to take advantage of it. Kooser hopes to get more chairs and eventually partner with KORE, a program that gives disabled patrons an opportunity to surf, to put together a day for disabled patrons to have a group beach day.
“I would volunteer my off time to bring this chair wherever someone wanted. That’s how important this is to me,” Kooser said, “Everyone deserves at least one day, and that’s what this whole program is about, creating a moment and giving them that day.”
| Date Taken: | 08.12.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2022 15:33 |
| Story ID: | 428059 |
| Location: | KEKAHA, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 93 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Beach Wheelchair Program, by PO2 Bodie Estep, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
