Gliding for the First Time
W
- Shannon Smadella -
hile many northerners love the fresh powdery snow that covers our communities from October through May, winter presents a huge challenge for those who use wheelchairs to get around. Thanks to the response of his community, Marcel Kozak, a Cranberry Portage resident and employee at Frontier School Division, found this challenge was made a little bit easier this year. “I have been a paraplegic for 35 years,” explains Kozak. “When I moved to Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, I found out very quickly how difficult the winter weather was going to be for me.” That’s where a local act of kindness came in. Gordon Kosmenko recalls, “I was coming home after work and noticed Marcel on the street with his wheelchair, struggling to get through the eight inches of snow. I stopped and asked if he needed help and he said, ‘No, I’ll be okay.’ A couple of weeks later, he came to me to fix his wheelchair." Kosmenko is a mechanic by trade, and through a few repairs and a replacement of the axel, he was able to help Kozak out temporarily. However, the larger issue of Kozak’s mobility in the winter was still unresolved. The purchase of a new wheelchair would run around the $4000 mark. Unable to get any assistance from provincial support programs for a replacement chair of the same kind, Kosmenko turned to the internet for some answers. “I just wanted to help him,” he recalls. “I can’t imagine how hard it is to navigate life in a wheelchair, and I wanted to do something to make his trek through the snowy streets a little easier.”
Kozak’s Wheel Blades have transformed his quality of life in the winter
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Marcel Kozak (left) and volunteer firefighter Gordon Kosmenko Photos by Gordon Kosmenko
During his research, Kosmenko stumbled across a unique invention from Switzerland called Wheel Blades. Wheel Blades are small, high-end skis that attach easily to the front wheels of wheelchairs or strollers; they are engineered to improve mobility in winter and during snowy and icy conditions. The inventor, Patrick Mayer, is a quadriplegic himself. “It always made me very sad that wintertime limited my mobility so severely,” says Mayer, “and that I had to make plans on how I was travelling anywhere. I have always loved winter and snow. I was surprised to find out that there was not a single, reasonably priced mobility aid on the market, one which could be attached and removed using basic manual skills.” Kosmenko quickly realized that Mayer’s Wheel Blades, at a cost of $575, could be the us: cottagenorthmagazine.ca
perfect solution to help Kozak navigate the snowy Manitoba streets. Kosmenko spoke with his colleagues at the Cranberry Portage Volunteer Fire Department, and they gladly agreed to donate the Wheel Blades to Kozak. “I asked Marcel if he would try them out” recalls Kosmenko. “And he loves them. He said to me, they are so good he even glides with them—he said he’s never glided in a wheelchair. “ “Pushing my wheelchair in and through the snow now is so much easier, and navigating through loose ice-snow chunks is nearly effortless,” explains Kozak. “This winter, things changed for me.” Marcel Kozak would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the Cranberry Portage Volunteer Fire Department. For more information on Wheel Blades visit www.wheelblades.ch or www. ottobock.ca