Wounded veterans hit lake for ski clinic
By Michelle Roberts - The Associated PressPosted : Friday Aug 29, 2008 6:16:38 EDT
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 past four years, dozens of veterans who suffered severe burns or amputations have joined the annual two-day clinic.
ALL CAN SKI ONLINE (go here to see some great pictures like the two above)
http://www.sanantoniosports.org/allcanski.html
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 Thursday for wounded veterans.
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 he was still grinning.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/waterskiing_woundedvets_ap_082908w/
