Injured vet learns to ski -- again

Terry Karkos/Sun Journal
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tad Stuart of the Army's 3-85th Warrior Transition Unit with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., re-learned how to ski this week during Maine Handicapped Skiing's fifth annual Veterans/No Boundaries Program at Sunday River Ski Resort. During his second tour in Iraq in 2007, Stuart suffered a devastating spinal cord injury when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in Baghdad.

Terry Karkos/Sun Journal
As a Maine Handicapped Skiing volunteer helps a disabled veteran into sit-ski equipment behind him on Saturday at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Army helicopter pilot Tad Stuart of the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, N.Y., works a strap on his outrigger up his arm prior to hitting the slopes. Stuart was participating in the Veterans/No Boundaries Program. He suffered a spinal injury in 2007 when the helicopter he was flying crashed in Baghdad.

NEWRY — The smile Saturday on Tad Stuart's face spoke volumes.

Through Maine Handicapped Skiing's fifth annual Veterans/No Boundaries Program at Sunday River Ski Resort, the Army helicopter pilot had learned to ski again. Stuart had suffered a devastating spinal cord injury during his second tour with the 317th Cavalry in Baghdad in 2007.

"I came for the experience and to see if I could ski again," said Stuart, a chief warrant officer and a 13-year Army veteran. He is still on active duty with the 3-85th Warrior Transition Unit of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y.

Veterans/No Boundaries is a specially designed program that provides recreational activities to veterans and active-duty personnel with physical disabilities who require adaptive instruction, equipment, and/or support to participate in sports.

Stuart, who grew up in Utah and Colorado and skied alpine, said he was doing a maintenance flight in an OH58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter in Iraq during the summer of 2007 when the chopper crashed in a hard landing and was destroyed.

He sustained two crushed vertebrae and substantial nerve damage. He now has no feeling in his hip area and spotty feeling in his legs below the mid-thigh area.

After a year of rehabilitation — three months in a wheelchair after weeks of being bedridden — Stuart said he had to teach himself how to walk again using a mirror to signal his brain that he was moving his legs.

"My spinal cord nurse called me 'The Miracle Worker,'" for his determination, he said.

"I try to do anything I can," Stuart said. "It might hurt, but I'm going to try. This program here is just a wonderful opportunity. I didn't know if I could ever ski again, but they got me on adaptive equipment."

When Stuart first tried skiing this week, he said he was put in boxlike equipment and had someone in front and behind him for control. From that, he progressed to being tethered to a volunteer, then to using outriggers.

On Saturday, he skied without a tether, with three Maine Handicapped Skiing instructors following behind.

"So, I progressed back to where I was skiing before, within limits of my injury," he said. "I was told that I did two years of instruction in a day and a half. This program is just incredible, not only for the motivation, but for the morale."

Army Staff Sgt. Rick Gagnon, who served two tours in Iraq with Stuart, and E6 Staff Sgt. James C. Eckard II, brought two other soldiers with them and four spouses from Fort Drum.

For all but Gagnon, a Plymouth native, it was the unit's first foray into Maine, thanks to Veterans/No Boundaries.

Gagnon and Eckard are facilitators who help soldiers stricken with post-traumatic stress disorder, back injuries and other combat injuries.

"Our mission is to help the soldiers heal, and either transition them into a return to duty or medical discharge," Eckard said, taking a break from learning how to snowshoe.

"Our goal is to have them become valuable members of a community, so we don't want them to fail," he said.

That's why this week's debut participation in Veterans/No Boundaries is so meaningful, the participants said.

"Everyone is absolutely friendly, so we're just like one big giant family," Stuart said of meeting 10 other participating disabled veterans. "We will bring a lot more soldiers with us next time."

That fits with what Veterans/No Boundaries is transitioning into, a program that can help combat-wounded veterans from recent and current conflicts.

"That's why it's exciting to have the 10th Mountain Division here," Maine Handicapped Skiing Outreach Director Eric Topper said.

But the program needs help overcoming the difficulty of travel needs in getting physically disabled soldiers to Maine.

"The Tenth has historically been a skiing unit, and these disabled soldiers will participate in Veterans/No Boundaries as part of services they receive through the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Drum," Topper said.

As with all Maine Handicapped Skiing programs, Veterans/No Boundaries is free to participants.

"They can do virtually anything here for any type of injury," said Gagnon, before heading out to ski with Stuart as Eckard learned snowboarding. "This is definitely an outstanding program, and the volunteers are unbelievable." 

tkarkos@sunjournal.com