Story originally printed in the Onalaska Life or online at www.onalaskalife.com
Published - Friday, April 25, 2008
Paraplegic speaker: ‘It’s not what you push but what pushes you’
 Keith Le Claire demonstrates how a body halo confines movement of the upper torso and how the halo is affixed to the head of the wearer. Photo by Jo Anne Killeen |
When life throws a major curve, some people strike out and sit in the dugout imagining everything that could have been. Holmen resident Keith Le Claire was thrown a major curve when he was 17-years-old, but instead of hiding out behind what could have been, he is out hitting home runs for youngsters by telling his story so they might prevent the same kind of risks.
The 38-year-old paraplegic delivered a humorous but deadly serious presentation to Holmen Middle School students on April 16 called Reality Check, designed to promote safety and disability awareness to youth.
With a unique, engaging style in clipped, staccato rhythm and laced with dark humor, pop quizzes and expert imitations of silly middle school students that had them giggling most of the time, Le Claire told the students about the accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down when he was 17 years old and out on a double-date.
He attended Aquinas High School in La Crosse and agreed to go ATV riding on three-wheelers.
“I was trying to be cool,” he said. “I didn’t want to look like a dork and I didn’t want to mess up my hair, and I wanted to look cool for this girl. So I didn’t wear my helmet.”
After the three-wheeler slid going around a curve, it flipped over and both he and the girl were thrown over a 16-foot cliff.
The three-day coma, the collapsed lung and the skull fracture from not wearing a helmet were some of his problems, but there were no long-term after effects from those injuries. The broken back, however, changed his life. He has no use of his legs, he has no feeling and no control over his internal organs and he is confined to a wheelchair.
Le Claire said it took him two years to learn how to do everything in a wheelchair to the point of being independent. He demonstrated some of his wheelchair skills such as going up and down steps and doing wheelies to go down steep hills.
“Does that mean my life is over?” he asked the students, to which they answered it didn’t. “Of course not. I ride in 120-mile bike rides, I swim, I play ice hockey, I play wheelchair basketball and I was the champion in my division playing tennis. I’m busier now than I was back then when I just played football and basketball. And now I have two kids to chase around.”
He just moved back to the Holmen area 10 months ago from Atlanta. His profession is being a public speaker, and he has just started to present to groups around the Coulee Region about safety and disability awareness.
The discussion turned serious as Le Claire talked to the Holmen students about safety products such as helmets.
“We put safety at the bottom of the barrel and entertainment at the top,” he said. “We say ‘no way’ when we are asked to pay $65 for a helmet to prevent us from dying. But we don’t know if we’re going to be the one out of a million that winds up paralyzed or the one that walks away unharmed.”
Le Claire told the students to “pay as much money as you have to to make sure you’ll agree to wear it. If it’s the fanciest and most expensive one, but you’ll wear it, get it. Pay for it. It’s worth it.”
After the item is purchased, he encouraged students to read the safety instructions, telling them they wouldn’t believe how many times he has seen kids and parents with their bike helmets on wrong. After cracking the kids up with silly placements of the bike helmet all over his head and shoulders that he said he has seen, Le Claire said, “They’re trying to do the right thing, but they’re not going the extra mile and read the instructions.”
Le Claire also wanted students to be more sensitive to the disabled and realize just because they can’t walk or can’t see doesn’t mean they can’t think for themselves or that they are automatically slower in the mind or are fragile.
“Just because I’m in a wheelchair doesn’t mean I need help,” he told them.
He tested the kids on what they would do if they came upon a person who looked as if he had fallen out of a wheelchair. Most of the kids said the first thing they would do is call 911. The students were confused when Le Claire asked them why they didn’t just ask him if he needed help.
“Don’t assume anything. Just ask,” he said.
Le Claire said he tries to break down barriers about people with disabilities. He described times when he would be wheeling down the street or in a shopping mall and mothers with little children would huddle the children to the side away from him, some even crossing the street to avoid him.
“Some people want to hush their children,” he said. “I’m here trying to teach you that we’re pretty normal.”
In trying to help students overcome their fear of becoming friends with and getting to know handicapped people, Le Claire told them he learned the hard way.
“It’s not about the body, it’s the heart,” he said.
Le Claire ended the presentation showing a video of people in wheel chairs, including himself, playing sports. His video finished with the message “It’s not what you push but what pushes you.”
All stories copyright 2006 Onalaska Life and other attributed sources.