Can't never could!

I remember being younger and my dad was trying to teach me to do something new. I would try to give up very easily and tell him I can't do it. He always told me can't never could. Which he basically explained to me you can't have that type of attitude and expect to accomplish anything new. Somewhere in my profile I explained that I love assistive technology. One of the reasons I love it so much is because it allows you to do things that some people don't think you can do. It is a welcoming challenge for anyone to tell me I can't do something. I will try to do everything possible to prove them wrong. So as a former police officer one of my goals during therapy from the very beginning was to be able to shoot again. Now I know you're thinking how can someone with no hand movement and very little arm movement be able to shoot again. Well, luckily I'm not the only person in a wheelchair that would like to be able to shoot again. So I found out at the Shepherd Center that a company made a sip and puff wheelchair mount for a shot gun or pistol. The name of the company is be adaptive equipment, LLC. At this point I was still unable to move either one of my arms and it helped me believe in several possibilities that I could accomplish. I was amazed by the people that helped create this.

I only got to check out a pamphlet about it the first time I was at Shepherd Center back in the summer of 2008. I was extremely busy during my inpatient stay at the hospital that I ran out of time to try it out. Once I got home there were several other things I needed than a sip and puff gun. I did some research about it and they came out with a new pistol mount. I was able to go back to the Shepherd Center back in October of 2010 for outpatient rehab. Once again, I mentioned shooting. So it finally came time for me to shoot again. I met with a recreational therapist in the gym one day. He had a target set up and brought in the mount. I can't explain how excited I was at this moment. I got everything set up and used a high-powered pellet rifle. At that time it didn't matter to me that it was just a pellet rifle. I was staring down the sights to a target again.I got to shoot several times and had a nice little pattern. It was an escape for a moment. I felt like I was back out on the range with all of my fellow officers. I still haven't had the opportunity to purchase one yet. I'm hoping I can in the future. I just wanted to show people exactly what it looked like and explain how it worked. I have talked about it in conversations before, and I'm sure people are wondering what the heck it looks like ha ha.

This is a picture of the BE adaptive equipment model HQ 100. There is a mounting plate that slides underneath the cushion of your wheelchair with the receiver tube coming up from the plate. If you look closely, you can see the places to make adjustments for any gun. I wanted to show everyone what it looked like without the weapon to get the general idea of what it looked like when you first set it up.

This is a close-up picture of the sip and puff straw. It is the blue straw going into his mouth. You simply give it a little suction and it makes the trigger mechanism pullback to fire the shot. It is like drinking through a straw, except with a little bit different reaction. You can also see the three adjustment knobs to adjust the speed of the motor that moves the weapon.

This is a close-up of the chin control. You can use your chin to move the weapon left to right. The HQ 100 has a small motor to help move the weapon back and forth. From my experience, it is much easier to slightly move the weapon than to try to to move your wheelchair to focus in on the target.

This picture shows you what it looks like with the gun mounted. He has also used his chin to move the weapon to his left. You can also adjust the weapon up and down.

This is a close up of the trigger mechanism. You can move it if you need to so it will fit any weapon.

I just added this picture to show the trigger mechanism in action. It just pulls back for a nice quick steady trigger pull.

This last picture is of the HQPM which is the pistol mount that you can add to the HQ100. It allows you to fit any size pistol into this mount.

The last picture of the HQPM is most ideal for me. I would love to shoot my Glock 40 duty weapon again. This device shows me that no matter what the obstacle you can find a way to overcome it. This is very ideal for anybody that loved to hunt before their accident. I am not a hunter but I still love shooting weapons. One of these days I will shoot again. Like I said before, I love the challenge whenever people tell me I can't do something. I challenge everyone to overcome whatever obstacle is standing in your way keeping you from doing what you want to do. I hope to write about many more assistive

* I used these pictures directly from the be adaptive website. Check out www.beadaptive.com if you are thinking about purchasing this for yourself. The website also has videos that I could not upload to the blog. There are also other mounts for paraplegics with hand control. I just focused on the sip and puff model. There are several videos and they are very short. I recommend you check them out. The videos also show the flexibility of the mount by shooting several different weapons.