Fern Larochelle looked at the front page of the Sun Journal and knew he had found what he was looking for.

The story was about an Auburn woman who suffered a broken back and the lift she used to live an independent lifestyle.

Larochelle hoped the hoist could help his son, Chris, like it did Jen Turner.

Chris Larochelle, 24, was born with spina bifida, a birth defect caused when the spine does not close and leaves nerves unprotected. He walked briefly as a toddler, but the condition eventually left him with no use of his legs.

“We always just did what we had to do. We did not treat him any different,” Chris’ mom, Gretchen Kons, said. “The community really rallied around us. That helped us out a lot.”

Confined to a wheelchair, Larochelle went to school, gave baseball a try and skied with Maine Handicapped Skiing for years. He has been an associate with Lisbon Falls Fire Department since his sophomore year at Lisbon High School, from where he graduated in 2005.

Every day after school, Larochelle helped his dad fix cars at Fern’s Body Shop. “He grew up here. He’s been here all his life,” Fern said while standing in the shadow of a 1939 Chevy street rod.

Chris started to venture out. He landed a job cutting grass for longtime family friend Peter Ruby, the owner of Sabattus Disc Golf.

“I have been close to Chris since he was born,” Ruby said. Giving Chris a job was “a unique opportunity where I could do something. This allowed him to get into the workplace, give him independence and lets him socialize with more people. Those objectives were the key component.”

Driving the lawn tractor was not a problem for Chris, but getting into the driver’s seat was. Grounds crew and Ruby himself had to lift Chris onto the seat.

“He’s not a kid; he’s a young man. He’s heavy. All of us have bad backs now,” Ruby joked.

It was Larochelle’s third summer cutting grass when his dad saw the photo of Turner in the lift she uses to move around her home. Fern Larochelle contacted the hoist manufacturer and the agencies that help support Chris. “Within a week, the ball was rolling,” Fern said.

With the help of the community and a great circle of friends, Chris can now get on and off the tractor with little help, said Mary Sanford, Chris’ community case manager with Employment Specialists of Maine. “Chris is a very lucky young man. He has very supportive parents and lives in a great community,” Sanford said.

“It was really a team effort,” Nick Mastrella of Work Opportunities Unlimited said.

“This (lift) makes it easier on everyone,” Ruby said after the lift was installed over the summer.

“This is the perfect fit for him,” Kons said. “Chris was quite pumped up about it.”

Larochelle mows fairways and roughs two days a week for up to seven hours per day.

“Chris always has a big smile on his face when he’s mowing,” said Ruby, who also put down stone paths so his disc golf course is more wheelchair accessible.

Ruby’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. “What an incredible young man to be able to see outside the barriers,” Sanford said. “He has gone above and beyond to help Chris.”

“The payback on this is seeing Chris out there having a good time,” Ruby said. “He always looks so happy.”

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