Fourteen years ago, David Heim made a decision that changed his life forever. He drove his car after a night out of drinking which resulted in an accident that left him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Three years later, in 1998, Heim founded The Wheelchair Recycler, Inc., an organization that refurbishes and recycles power wheelchairs for those who cannot afford one, or have been left waiting, and thereby, immobile, for their insurance to come through with one.
Taking the initiative to get these chairs (which according to his website, Wheelchairrecycler.org, can cost $5,000 to $25,000) to the people that need them most, Heim has turned his accident into an opportunity to help others. And his mission is two-fold: getting power chairs to those in need, while saving otherwise working chairs and parts from piling up in landfills.
The Christopher Reeve Foundation even donated one of the late actor’s chairs and the parts were used to get other chairs in working order.
If you have a wheelchair and would like to donate it to the cause, click here for more information.
“Mobility is a right,” Heim says on his website, so he’s doing what he can to keep the wheels turning.
Photo: Wheelchairrecycler.org