Finding Their Footing

The 26th National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic shows that adaptive sports are powerful medicine.

Jason Stebbins shook his head in disbelief. Why won’t this lady leave me alone, he thought. But here she was again, talking about going skiing in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

“I’m not going skiing, it’s dangerous,” he would tell Joyce Casey, his recreation therapist at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee.

Stebbins had reason to be nervous. He served 25 years in the United States Army before being medically retired after sustaining a spinal-cord injury (SCI) in November 2010. The thought of hurling his body down a mountain was difficult to grasp.

“The last thing I want to do is hurt myself even more,” he explains.

But he also realized he couldn’t hole up in his house for the rest of his life. With a wife and three children—ages 2, 4 and 7—Stebbins wasn’t about to miss out on all the joys of being an active husband and father.

So he signed up to attend the 26th National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, held March 25–30, in Snowmass, Colo. 

Trust

The experience would provide a number of “firsts” since his injury—his first time in an airplane, his first time skiing, and his first time in a swimming pool.  But perhaps more importantly, he learned a lesson that will last a lifetime.

“What I’m finding most helpful as I rehab is that you’ve just got to trust the people who are here to help you,” Stebbins says. 

He quickly developed a sense of trust during his first ski lesson with adaptive instructors Brian Guido and Phil Popp, both from the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center.

The First Step

“I was scared to death,” admits Stebbins. His instructors could sense he was nervous and were careful to explain every step. 

 

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