Day on the slopes for wounded soldiers

Manchester (NH) Union Leader ^ | March, 20 2005 | PAULA TRACY

[Johnc1]

WATERVILLE VALLEY — Nine disabled soldiers who recently lost limbs or became blind fighting for freedom in Iraq got a new sense of their own freedom this weekend at Waterville Valley.

They were brought here from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. with their families and as part of their rehabilitation, they got to ski. Their smiles, their laughs and their words reveal the experience was uplifting and liberating to them.

Jeremy Feldbusch, 25, of Blairsville, Pa, skis down the mountain with the assistance of Waterville Valley Adaptive Skiing Program instructor BJ Pessia Saturday afternoon. Feldbusch was left permanently blind in an explosion while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Alan MacRae/for the Union Leader) “I was really hesitant about skiing on this prosthesis because I just got it 13 days ago,” said 25-year-old Stephen Rice of Godfrey, Ill., who had graduated from the bunny slope to the summit in one day.

Yesterday was perhaps the most physically active and fulfilling day he had in the 15 months since he was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq and suffered permanent loss of his lower left leg.

After agreeing to an amputation in January — because the fused bones would not allow for him to do the sports he was accustomed to — he said his hope is now to be able to run by May.

The skiing is a great motivator and it helped him believe in his own progress, he said.

“It’s been great . . . It is very motivating,” said Rice, who had not skied in years. “It lets me know that, yes, I am getting better and tomorrow good things are going to happen.”

The soldiers came to New Hampshire with assistance from Disabled Sports U.S.A., a national nonprofit organization established in 1967 by disabled Vietnam veterans.

Kirk Bauer, executive director and himself a disabled Vietnam veteran, said there is universal support for the soldiers who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and particularly so for the 500 or more that have suffered permanent, life-altering disabilities, such as these soldiers.

At of Feb. 5, the number of U.S. wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan has reached 11,220, according to federal statistics. Bauer said most, however, have not suffered loss of limb, blindness, or brain and other debilitating injuries.

Many of the severely wounded are returned to Walter Reed for extensive rehabilitation, but the days, Bauer said, can be long and the accommodations are more like a hotel than a home. This, he said, is a vacation from the daily job of rehabilitation.

He said the organization augments rehabilitative services and acts as a conduit to the community for sports therapy. This winter, he said the organization has helped other soldiers from Walter Reed to ski at resorts, mostly larger sites in the West, such as Vail in Colorado and Sun Valley in Idaho.

This was the first New England trip for the group.

They were flown from Washington to Manchester on Thursday and are staying through today with families in homes and donated condominiums in Waterville Valley.

Disabled veteran Stephen Shalu of North Carolina was out skiing for the first time with his family.

“We are having a blast,” he said, noting that his wife skied before, but he never did. His wounds actually brought them together to do the sport, he said.

Norberto Lara was snowboarding yesterday with his wife, Starlyn, and though he took a few tumbles and had to get used to not having a right arm, he was all smiles, soaking up the warmth of the March sunshine.

Lara was wearing body armor in a vehicle doing patrol in Iraq in June 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade tore through his vehicle. The armor saved his life but he lost his arm and suffered liver and lung damage. His wife, also in the Army, returned to the U.S. where Norberto is undergoing extensive rehabilitation.

As for this weekend, Lara said: “We are loving this.”

Jeremy Feldbusch, 25, and his mother, Charlene, of Pennsylvania, were at the mountain together for the weekend. Jeremy is now blind from shrapnel wounds and he suffered frontal brain damage in Iraq in 2003. He was serving with 3rd Ranger Battalion when he came under fire at a dam.

Feldbusch had been a skier and a snowboarder before the injury, and was in great shape, but he acknowledged he has lost considerable weight and regained all and then some, since his injury.

With skis strapped to his legs and guides helping direct him down the mountain, Feldbusch said he found it was a lot more difficult without the use of sight.

“It’s a lot different being able to see the hill,” he said, “I have to feel the hill . . . you could say I fell more than a couple of times. I did some severe nose plants,” he laughed. But no injury.

For those who helped the soldiers, the event was equally uplifting.

“This is a great way for us to reach out to the men and women who have made huge sacrifices to secure our freedom and to bring democracy to the people of the Middle East,” said Waterville Valley Adaptive Skiing Program Director Kathy Chandler. She said there was a tremendous outpouring of community support once the officials at Disabled Sports U.S.A. contacted her to see if they could bring a group here.

Judy Brady, of the Silver Streaks, a local over-50 group of snowsports enthusiasts, headed up a hospitality committee that involved many local residents, businesses.

Specially-trained volunteer instructors took to the trails with the soldiers, and gave them adaptive equipment, which included sit skis, mono-skis and guides for the blind.

Many said they had not skied before or had not skied in years.

One of the volunteers yesterday was Chris Devlin-Young of the U.S. Ski Team, who was left paralyzed from the waist down in a plane crash while serving with the Coast Guard.

“I learned how to ski at the very first national disabled winter sports clinic,” held at Alpine Meadows, Calif.

Now there are 300 veterans who attend the event in Colorado. And Devlin-Young is coming off a season with five World Cup wins and an overall win at the X Games in the first-ever monoskier cross.

“Skiing for me gave me my life back,” said Young. “It is not neat to have new disabled veterans but these are the facts,” he said. “But if we can come out here and now have some fun and realize that maybe I am missing some parts . . . but it is not over. My life isn’t over. I can go out and have some fun and skiing is that perfect fun. The chairlift takes you to the top of the mountain, the gravity brings you down.

“You’ve got the instructors, you have the equipment everything has already been worked out after years and years of trial and error. And for me to come out and give a few pointers and ski around with them and flash a couple of runs and show them how it is done it is inspiring for them and me as well.”