On Tuesday, Vancouver Coastal Health welcomed five Paralympians, (four of whom are GF Strong alum leaving next week for the Rio 2016 Paralympics), for a special “Have a Go” event hosted by the BC Wheelchair Sports Association (BCWSA) at GF Strong Rehab Centre (GFS).

The athletes teamed up with GFS clients to help them “have a go” at modified versions of rugby, tennis and basketball. For some, it was their first time being strapped into the specialized sports chairs―low to the ground, more stable and quick turning.

Trevor Hirschfield, 32, and co-captain of Canada’s Paralympic team, recalls the first time he tried a sports chair months after getting out of GFS and that feeling of freedom. Not that he was immediately interested in wheelchair sports. His road to Rio happened 16 years ago on a logging road on Vancouver Island. His van slid down an embankment, hit a tree and left him paralyzed from the neck down. He was just 16.

During recovery, making it to graduation with his friends is what mattered to him, not sports.  “It took Duncan Campbell (the inventor of Wheelchair Rugby and a former R.T. at GFS) not giving up to get me involved,” he said. Duncan called Trevor’s father who drove him to “Have a Go” in Victoria. “It wasn’t until I got into the chair that I realized how much I’d been missing sports. I loved the physicality of it. I was hooked from that very first time.”

Timing is important

Recreation Therapist Kim Gorrell, (GFS) and a BCWSA program coordinator knows how important timing is in working with clients.  She attempts to meet new clients within the first couple of weeks after their admission.

“It’s never been about developing Paralympians,” she says. “The goal is ‘sport for life.’ If clients try something and hate it, we’ll find something else.”  We want them to do it because they enjoy it, do some exercise and meet some people.  “Sometimes talk around the lunch table is what gets someone thinking that if that person can do that, maybe I should give it a try.” And of course there’s the benefits:  community, physical fitness, cardio, increased confidence, better mental health, higher self-esteem and social interaction.  “At GFS, recreation therapy is just as likely to be gardening as it is wheelchair rugby,” Kim says.

Marni Abbott-Peter, former Paralympic athlete turned coach, recalls her time at GFS in the early 80s.  “Not only was the staff great working with me, an 18-year old inpatient, but they were great with my family too,” she tells VCH News, “especially my mother, who like most parents in this situation, wanted to do everything for me. They knew how to deal with that.”

Getting ready

Back in the gym, Lesley Head, 29 and a GFS inpatient, is still adjusting to life after a skiing accident at Whistler this past April. Having skied since she was two, her natural athleticism is apparent during her first game of wheelchair rugby.

Head spent two months at VGH (ICU) and then the spinal ward before GFS. She admits a new world that she never imagined having to navigate is opening up. She’s considering whether to return to SFU (Statistics) and how it will be to live in her apartment again come October.  But in the moment, the former long distance cyclist thinks hand cycling is something she’d like to try.

When Trevor sat down in a sports chair 16 years ago, he had almost no familiarity with adaptive sports.  Now as he leaves for Rio, all he knows for sure is the competition is stiff and he has high hopes for another medal. Then, after the games, he’s staying on with his wife and friends to do a little surfing, a little snorkeling and celebrate, no matter the outcome.

“Have a Go” takes place every Tuesday from 3-4:30 pm at GFS whether just one participant or nine show up and is open to both in and out patients.

Learn more

BC Wheelchair Sports Association

Bridging the Gap

2016 Rio Paralympic Games