43
Skiing gives paralyzed vets freedom
Skiing in Aspen also gives the disabled military veterans the confidence to do other things.
YOUNGSTOWN — At the top of the mountain, they forget they can’t walk.
Skiing down the mountain, with the wind in their faces, physical limits don’t seem to matter as much.
“When you get up on that mountain, you feel like you are on top of the world. There is a sense of freedom going down that slope at breakneck speeds,” said Don C. Crago of Coitsville.
“You get up on the top, you forget about your injuries and everyday problems. They just go away,” said Darrel K. McCauley of Champion.
Crago and McCauley are both 100 percent disabled military veterans. They are among some 450 veterans with disabilities, including 16 from Ohio, who spent the week in the Rocky Mountains at the 22nd National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass Village at Aspen, Colo. Nearly 120 of the participants were recently injured during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom
Crago, 46, and McCauley, 45, are primarily skiers. A number of other adaptive activities and sports, such as rock climbing, scuba diving, snowmobiling and sled hockey, were available. Also, the U.S. Secret Service taught a course on self-defense designed for people with disabilities.
“It’s the camaraderie, and the confidence it gives you to try other things,” said Crago. “Every time I talk to a disabled veteran, I encourage them to get involved in winter or summer sports. ... It’s amazing to see people do the things they never thought they would do again.”
The ability to snow ski has led Crago, who described himself as an outdoors person, to also get involved in water skiing and skeet shooting.
Crago, a 1979 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, was injured in November 1983 when the car he was in, returning from leave to Fort Carson, Colo., ran off the road into a ravine near Kansas City, Kan. The driver landed on Crago’s neck, crushing his vertebrae and leaving him a paraplegic. The driver broke his back in the crash but fully recovered.
Crago, who is divorced and has no children, enlisted in the Army in September 1980. He was a specialist 4 when he received his medical discharge. He can’t walk and has to use a wheelchair.
For a while, he suffered from depression. “But since I’ve been skiing, I haven’t felt that way,” he said.
Though he can’t work, Crago said he has made a life for himself.
“I have a snowmobile, and I work on motorcycles in my garage, and ride them. That keeps me pretty occupied,” he said.
McCauley, whose rank was fireman E-3 when he was discharged, was paralyzed from the chest down in an accident that occurred while he was loading ammunition on a ship in August 1985.
He said a freight elevator “let loose” and plummeted 40 feet with him and a 2,000-pound missile in it. His spinal cord was severely damaged, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. The 1982 graduate of Champion High School worked as an electrician in New Mexico before he enlisted in the Navy to get more training.
McCauley’s parents, Darrel and Treva McCauley, live in Champion. He has a son, Darrel III, at home, and a sister, Karla Baird of Lowellville.
The National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic is sponsored by the VA and the Disabled American Veterans. Hosts for this year’s event were the Grand Junction, Colo., VA Medical Center and the VA’s Rocky Mountain Network.
Crago said the winter sports clinic has given him a purpose in life.
“I look forward to it every year, and it has turned me on to a lot of other activities I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do. But the main thing is the skiing, which I didn’t do before I was hurt,” he said.
He said his main goal is to get totally independent so he can ski on his own anywhere and anytime. He received his adaptive ski two months ago through the VA.
“The VA usually gets me a new wheelchair every year, but this year I kept the old wheelchair and I got the ski. It’s a beautiful thing,” he said.
The ski costs $2,800 to $3,500 and Crago said he used it a lot this year, skiing at several locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. Previously he rented an adaptive ski.
“Having your own makes is a lot better because it is tailored for you,” he said.
At first, Crago said, he was afraid skiing was going to be too much of a hassle and that he would need a lot of help.
“But, I found out that I didn’t need that much help. I drive. I can ride the regular chair lifts. I don’t like to be helped, but if I do need help, I’ll ask for it,” he said.
For a long time after he was injured, Crago said, he didn’t want to go out because he felt people were looking at him and treating him funny.
“Now, I feel more socially accepted. When they see me ski, they look at the skier. It gives you a different outlook on life. I think, if I can do this, I can do anything,” he said.
Crago said the DAV and Paralyzed Veterans of America pick up most of the cost of the trip. “It doesn’t cost me much at all. I thank everybody for that,” he said.
Crago’s parents are deceased, but he has several siblings in the area who help him out, including his sister Loree Keister of New Galilee, Pa., with whom he goes skeet shooting. Others siblings are a sister, Mary Ford of Youngstown; and four brothers: Del Colon and Jody Crago, both of Youngstown; Kipper Crago of Austintown; and Kenny Crago of Canfield.
Crago, a member of the DAV and Buckeye Paralyzed Veterans of American, has now started water skiing.
McCauley, who didn’t ski before he was paralyzed, started going to the clinic in Aspen eight years ago. “When I come out here, I forget I’m in a wheelchair,” he said in a telephone interview from Aspen.
McCauley, who like Crago has his own adaptive ski equipment, also skis in Ohio and other places out West. He teaches mono skiing, using an apparatus with a bucket style seat that has a single ski underneath, at Brandywine in the Cleveland area. He is also involved in Three Trackers of Ohio, a volunteer nonprofit organization that promotes adaptive recreational sports to people with or without physical disabilities.
McCauley’s passion is for skiing, but he is involved in many other events and activities. In the summer, he does hand cycling and track and field events, participates in the annual Veterans Wheelchair Games. He said he was the first paralyzed person to participate in the Wisconsin Highland Games, an event primarily for able-bodied people.
The events and activities motivate him to get better and gives him the confidence to do other things and try to help other people. “I get to travel a lot, and I talk to a lot of people with injuries and to try and motivate them,” he said.
“Life goes on,” said McCauley, a member of DAV Chapter 11 in Warren, and a support group at Forum Health Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.
“It doesn’t mean life is over because I can’t walk. You just have to make the best of it,” he said. “Coming out here [to Aspen] gives me a world of confidence to do other things. When I get home, I think, if I can do that, I can do anything.”
alcorn@vindy.com