ENJOYING WATER SPORTS
ECU, area nonprofit provide adapted equipment to give people with disabilities a day on the river
Adapting to a new way of life is something Brent Carpenter of Greenville has had to do for the past decade and a half. He was once an avid wakeboarder; however, a diving accident in a swimming pool changed all of that.
“The first thing I asked my doctor was, ‘Am I ever going to be able to be involved with water sports again?’” Carpenter said.
Carpenter suffered a spinal cord injury and is now a quadriplegic. He’s paralyzed from the chest down and has lost a lot of use in his arms and hands. But Carpenter has returned to the water, churning through the waves on skis at the Splash Bash Adaptive Water Sports Day, held Aug. 31 on the Pamlico River in Washington. The annual event is a collaboration between the nonprofit STAR (Support Team for Active Recreation) and East Carolina University’s recreational therapy program.
“I’ve actually surprised myself,” Carpenter said. “I’ve done things I never thought I’d be able to do again.”
Jamie Yahnker is the president of STAR, which specializes in adaptive recreation and social events for individuals with physical disabilities living in eastern North Carolina. Yahnker has cerebral palsy and enjoys taking part in the Splash Bash as well. He appreciates the collaboration with ECU faculty and students.
“It’s awesome because we give them the opportunity to get the feel for the audience they’re going to school for to work with,” he said. “We get them out from behind the books and the classrooms to these real hands-on events.”
That’s a sentiment Dr. David Loy, ECU associate professor of recreational therapy, agrees with wholeheartedly.
“For them [students] to get out here, they can work on transfers, they can see how to work with individuals with disabilities – they can see what the limitations are and how we can go beyond those limitations with certain activities,” Loy said.
ECU recreational therapy student Brittany Dalama, center, rides a towable tube behind a boat with Ardeania Burney, left, and Sherry Robinson.
Getting beyond those limitations is what this day is all about.
“Let’s assess their needs and the physical skills they have, and then we adapt to that either through equipment, through techniques,” Loy stated. “That’s the point of this activity – to get people active again. Research suggests that people that are more active are less likely to have secondary health conditions – less skin problems, depression is reduced.”
For ECU senior and recreational therapy student Brittany Dalama, this event is a pretty good view of her future, as she wants to work in rehabilitation one day – specifically with those who have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
When Dalama was in high school, she suffered a TBI while playing goalie during a soccer match. She said she hit the back of her head on the goalpost, was unconscious for some 32 minutes and endured six weeks of rehabilitation. She knows firsthand the value of getting those with disabilities up on water skis, a raft or on a kayak.
“For a second they forgot about their disabilities,” Dalama said. “It was really cool to see them actually have fun and not think, ‘Oh, I can’t do this.’”
Those who are involved with the Splash Bash said it’s that empowerment that helps the participants know they can do things most people can – they just have to do it a little differently.
“I’m always looking to really push the limits and show people what you can do instead of what you can’t do,” Carpenter said. “I’m just using what I do have instead of what I don’t have.”