Veteran's wheelchair means freedom
 

Veteran's wheelchair means freedom
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By RON HAYES

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
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Sgt. 1st Class Steve Holloway, wounded by a sniper in Iraq, will get his wheelchair Friday.


WEST PALM BEACH — When Sgt. 1st Class Steve Holloway returned from Iraq in May, paralyzed by a sniper's bullet, more than 70 relatives, friends and admirers gathered in a Royal Palm Beach community center to welcome the Army National Guardsman home and wish him well in his recovery.

This week, some total strangers will help him take a big step toward stepping out again when he's presented with a $25,000 iBOT wheelchair by the Independence Fund, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping wounded veterans.




Designed by inventor Dean Kamen, who developed the Segway human transporter, the iBOT is to conventional wheelchairs what supersonic jets are to biplanes. It can climb stairs, navigate curbs and elevate the user to reach shelves and countertops.

"It's a pretty awesome piece of equipment," Holloway said Wednesday. "It's going to allow me to have a lot more freedom than I have right now. There's a lot of places I can't go now."

Holloway, a 34-year-old father of two, had been a recruiter for the Florida Army National Guard when he volunteered for duty in Iraq. In January 2007, he was in Mosul, helping a wounded soldier, when he was struck by a sniper's bullet.

"I'm doing OK," reports Holloway, who underwent treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and months of rehabilitation in Tampa. "I've made progress from when I first got home, but not to where I can walk. I was completely paralyzed from the waist down. Now my left leg has come back pretty well, but it's still weak, and I have some activity in my upper right leg, but it's limited."

He will receive his iBOT at a benefit for the Independence Fund from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday at E.R. Bradley's Saloon, 104 Clematis St.

In addition to the presentation, up-and-coming Nashville singer and Iraq War veteran Stephen Cochran will perform an acoustic show.

Incorporated in June, the Independence Fund was founded by Col. Steve Danyluk, a Marine Corps reservist married to an active-duty Marine.

Returning from Iraq in 2006, Danyluk, a commercial pilot, worked in an Arlington, Va., rehabilitation center for severely wounded veterans when the idea for the organization was born.

"Steve will be the seventh guy we've given an iBOT to," Danyluk said. "It's got three gyroscopes and six onboard computers, so it gives a paraplegic as much independence as is physically possible. But the thing that really sold me is that the second veteran I got one for was able to be raised to eye level with another person, and he was practically in tears because he didn't have to look up at anyone who spoke to him."

The fund also has been supported by a $100,000 grant from the Military Order of the Purple Heart, which will be represented by local members at the benefit.

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This is a great story. Thank you for sharing. I know the VA does supply these for vets but not often. It's good to see a veteran get what he or she needs to be independent again.