For paralyzed veterans, marathon means a ‘spark of normality’
In 2009, the same year the Pittsburgh Marathon returned to the city’s streets after a fiveyear hiatus, a team of U.S. Army soldiers came under attack in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The Taliban launched a firefight on the 12-member Joint Operations team, showering it with 82mm mortars and machine gun fire as the soldiers tried to find a safe landing spot for helicopters to take them out of the area after supporting a larger French mission.
A mortar landed just a few feet from the team leader, Sgt. Major David Neumer, on his third tour of Afghanistan after enlisting in the Army during the Gulf War. The explosion left him with a traumatic brain injury and lower-extremity disabilities after doctors managed to salvage his legs. A 2½-year stay at
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, D.C., literally put him back together — leaving him able to walk but with severe mobility limitations.
It was during his recovery that Mr. Neumer — now 52 and retired from the Army in 2012 with multiple decorations, including the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and French Cross of Valor with Silver Star — discovered the sport of handcycling.
Unable to run or bike because of embedded shrapnel in his knees, part of his therapy was using the adaptive bicycle that Mr. Neumer could pedal with his hands.
“Once I started with that, I realized it was just like cardio,” Mr. Neumer said. “It was just like running again. … The heart rate and the breathing were all the same.”
That little spark of normality was enough to keep Mr. Neumer handcycling beyond its rehabilitation benefits. And as a member of the Paralyzed Veterans of America Racing Team, the Chicago native will compete in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon’s handcycling division Sunday for the second consecutive year — six years after the attack that changed his life.
The racing team started gaining traction about five years ago. After starting with about a dozen handcyclers, the team now supports 146 racers, some of whom are elite enough to vie for spots on the U.S. Paralympic team, and competes at more than 50 events a year nationally. About a dozen will race at this year’s Pittsburgh Marathon.
Rory Cooper, chairman of the department of rehabilitation science and technology at Pitt, is one of those competitors.
Mr. Cooper was injured in a bicycle accident while stationed with the Army in Germany. But having been an avid runner before his spinal cord injury, he turned to handcycling and has competed in every Pittsburgh Marathon since its return in 2009 after not being held since 2003 due to a lack of funding. Mr. Cooper won the division that year.
“Sports is just a great way to get reintegrated into the community,” Mr. Cooper said. “If you’re a soldier and you get injured, it changes your whole perspective of self because the military is such a physical environment. … [With handcycling,] you get to build strength, stamina. You’re doing it out in the community with other people, and you can re-establish that sense of being athletic and being capable again.”
Many marathons have eliminated the handcycling divisions because the sport has been deemed too dangerous — racers can reach speeds of more than 30 mph — or more equivalent to biking than running. And while the Pittsburgh Marathon has instituted some rules such as a 20-mph speed cap on the 2-mile downhill stretch at the end of the course, Mr. Cooper said it is still “the most friendly marathon for handcycle racers” because the marathon provides dedicated medical staff and repair technicians along the course as well as a bicycle escort — who knows the course and specific rules — for each racer.
Today, the team will host an adaptive cycling clinic at the H.J. Heinz Campus of the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in O’Hara to teach the sport to people with physical disabilities.
Jody Shiflett, the team’s director of fitness and cycling, said the clinic is one of four the Paralyzed Veterans of America puts on every year around the country, and he has seen firsthand how life-changing the sport can be. He broke his back in a parachute training accident after fighting in the Gulf War.
“It gave me something that I could devote myself to and achieve various things over the years and help other people as well,” Mr. Shiflett said of handcycling. “It allows you a venue for you to express yourself competitively and [set] yourself up with some goals.”
After retiring from the service, Bruce Newman endured a lower spinal cord injury as a paramedic in an ambulance accident. He said handcycling has provided him with a community of friends who have had similar experiences as he has had — and it’s just plain fun.
“If you can remember back when you were a kid, and you got your first bicycle, and you could pedal around the neighborhood and go see other friends,” Mr. Newman said. “Handcycles allow us to do that.
“There’s a sense of freedom.”