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Wheelchair no barrier to water skiing
By Slim Smith, Tribune Columnist
June 1, 2006Paul Guzman plans to go water skiing Saturday.
Now, if you don’t know about Guzman, this probably doesn’t strike you as anything out of the ordinary. After all, it’s Arizona. People by the thousands flock to lakes every weekend to escape the heat.
What makes Guzman’s excursion on the water unique is that he is a quadriplegic. Guzman, 25, will join a group of roughly 150 people with debilitating neurological injuries as part of Barrow Neurological Institute’s “Day on the Lake’’ at Bartlett Lake.
While Barrow has held this event for 10 years now, it will be Guzman’s first experience as a quadriplegic water skier. Come to think of it, it will be his first experience as a water skier, period.
“I’ve never done it,’’ said Guzman, whose life and spinal cord were shattered on May 27, 2005, when he was shot in the neck in a random act of violence. “I got into a pool at my uncle’s house last weekend, though. That was pretty cool, so I’m looking forward to Saturday.’’
Truth is, Guzman is looking forward to a lot of things a year after the senseless act that has tested the Mesa native in every imaginable way.
“I have my ups and downs,’’ Guzman said. “But I’m pretty focused on getting stronger. For me, it’s really all about plain old independence.’’
Although Guzman is destined to remain wheelchairbound, he now sees possibilities emerging from the cloud of confusion and anger that descended on him that awful night when a gang member approached Guzman’s car and shot him once in the neck as he was driving down Southern Avenue near Extension Road in Mesa.
There are still times when Guzman reflects on that night, what was lost forever or altered beyond imagination. But he has not surrendered to that despair. And in the last year, he has learned to do many of life’s simple tasks that, for a quadriplegic, require hours of therapy and infinite patience.
“A year ago, I could barely move,’’ he said. “Everything is coming out great. I’m able to go to the restroom by myself, which was a big accomplishment. I’ve started drawing and I’ve done some pretty good pictures.
“But everything really is a workout for me, eating or getting something out of a drawer or picking something up off the floor. But I’m getting better, stronger. My goal now is to get into a manual wheelchair. That’s my next big goal.’’
There are more struggles ahead, and some disappointments, too, I suspect.
But Guzman is going to be all right, mainly because he has discovered that sometimes life is more about getting on than getting over.
And Guzman is getting on.
Saturday at Bartlett Lake is just another example.
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