Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead as broad-shouldered Randy Holcombe worked his wheelchair up the long ramp at Jennette’s Pier in the afternoon sun.

Once at the top and under a roof’s shade, he parked near the railing, where a cool breeze blew and it was more comfortable to talk. On the beach below was evidence of Holcombe’s efforts to help people in wheelchairs gain access to the beach.

Handicap ramps led to showers and bathrooms next to the parking lot. Bright blue rubber mats about 60 feet long provided wheelchair paths across the sand. Also free for borrowing were wheelchairs with plastic pipe frames and fat rubber tires, capable of rolling on the soft sand with a friend’s push.

“I was the squeaky wheel,” said Holcombe, who lives in Nags Head. “We need to be able to get all the way down to the beach.”

A new ramp in Kitty Hawk – sloping gently at 1 inch per foot to a platform on the dune top – is the latest in handicap beach accesses on the Outer Banks.

Nags Head has about 17 ramps either to the tops of dunes or onto the beach.

At Eighth Street and at Jennette’s Pier, the town offers mats made of steel rods coated in blue rubber that can be rolled up during a storm or in the winter. The mats allow people to wheel close to the surf.

Kill Devil Hills, other towns and Cape Hatteras National Seashore offer similar facilities. Rental stores offer beach wheelchairs.

“We feel like it is a special place here and everyone should have access to it,” said Lee Nettles, director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau.

Nettles said he averages four phone inquiries a week about handicap access.

Nags Head offers balloon-tire wheelchairs at Ocean Rescue sites. Matt Cahill with Nags Head Ocean Rescue has pushed people onto the beach on several occasions.

“They’re free and they’re first-come, first-served,” Cahill said. “These do pretty well over the sand.”

Some handicap accesses were already in place when Holcombe, 49, moved here 20 years ago, but he has been an instigator for expansion in Nags Head in recent years.

“It’s ongoing,” he said. “As time goes by, I keep poking at them. It’s dear to my heart.”

Holcombe said that three years ago a friend who is a quadriplegic inspired him to ask Nags Head town commissioners to offer mats and wheelchairs. Holcombe got a new perspective from his friend, who would travel 10 hours to get here and pay $5,000 a week for a place to stay, but could sit only on a ramp atop a dune.

“You can only watch your family play on the beach,” Holcombe said.

Nags Head commissioners responded well to his requests, he said.

The Americans With Disabilities Act requires that ramps offer handicap access at least to the dune top, said Bob Thompson, advocacy coordinator for the Disability Advocates and Resource Center. He often ferries groups to the beach at Fort Macon, he said.

“We have taken people down there that have never seen the ocean before and never been in the ocean because they have been in a wheelchair all their life,” Thompson said.

Holcombe acknowledged that handicap facilities add cost.

A 30-foot rubber mat costs about $1,500. The new Kitty Hawk handicap ramp cost $41,500 compared with a standard ramp’s $11,200.

But the facilities serve many different populations, Holcombe said, including injured soldiers, mothers with strollers, those using walkers and canes, and older people who may struggle with steep steps or soft sand.

“That’s the thing,” he said. “Let’s have equal access to the beach.”

Source: hamptonroads.com

Envolva-se em nosso conteúdo, seus comentários são bem-vindos!