Wounded war veterans hit the water for ski clinic
SAN ANTONIO - Wheelchairs parked and crutches tossed aside, dozens of soldiers wounded in war hit the lake at a theme park in what's believed to be the nation's largest water-skiing clinic for people with physical disabilities.
The All Can Ski program has been teaching people with physical disabilities to water-ski since 1992, but in the last four years, dozens of veterans who suffered severe burns or amputations have joined the annual two-day clinic.
Of the 81 people who attended the program at SeaWorld San Antonio on Wednesday and Thursday, 26 were military veterans; most participated in a special session for wounded veterans on Thursday.
The manmade lake is typically used by the park's professional water-skiers to put on trick shows for tourists, but during the clinic Thursday, amputees rode the wake with water skis on their prosthetic legs or fitted with chairs.
"It was real fun," said Sgt. Michael Gallardo, a 23-year-old from Los Angeles who lost part of a leg in a blast in Iraq last year.
Water-skiing for the first time, Gallardo rode around the lake on two skis, one leg in a prosthetic. After his first spin around the lake, he tried to hop the wake and wiped out but was still grinning.
"I thought I could do something better. I was trying to show off," he said, dripping wet on the narrow sandy shore of the lake.
Erich Menger, a catering business owner who has volunteered with the ski clinic for the past 10 years, said the wounded veterans are different than the children and other adults who participate.
"These guys want to try a little more of everything," he said before the wounded warriors session got under way. "They're already quizzing me, 'Can we do this? Can we do that?'"
Sgt. Tim Norton, who had his leg amputated after a shotgun accidentally discharged point-blank into his foot in Iraq, skied on a single ski Thursday saying it was much like he remembered it before his accident.
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