Student Involvement – US Open Adaptive Surfing Championships, Sponsored by USAHS

Stoke For Life Student Involvement

[00:00:00] Maureen Johnson (OT Faculty): We’re here in Oceanside, California for the US Open Adaptive Surfing Contest. Adaptive surfing are for professional surfers who want to surf again at the high competitive level, but they have a situation. So they may have spinal cord injury, an amputation. They may have cerebral palsy or congenital limbs, and they can’t enter into an able-bodied surf contest because of their situation.

[00:00:27] Shawnie Whitaker: I lost my leg back in 1989 in a car accident. I was in a coma 28 days.

[00:00:32] Quinn Waitley: I was born with cerebral palsy, so it affects all my four limbs, so I’m a quadriplegic and I just like to have fun and surf.

[00:00:42] Fellipe Kizu Lima: I got hurt when I was 18 years old, and I fell down from a balcony and broke my back. I start surfing again two years after my injury.

[00:00:51] Claudio Morales: Adaptive surfing takes a collective effort, and so it’s not just a one person is surfing by themselves or being stoked by themselves. This is more like a team stoke.

[00:01:03] Quinn Waitley: “Let’s go!”

[00:01:05] Maureen Johnson (OT Faculty): I started recognizing I’m teaching the students at the University of St. Augustine how to roll a patient over in bed, how to transfer them into a wheelchair, how to show them how to use a wheelchair, how to walk with different assisted devices.

[00:01:18] Maureen Johnson (OT Faculty): And what I recognize is we have this controlled environment in our CICP at the university, and I felt, “Wow, you should really see people who are actually living their passion.” And so our students at the University of St. Augustine get to have that experience. They get hands-on training how to use the beach chairs, how all the wheelchairs here and all the adapted equipment has empowered the athletes and made the athletes better.

[00:01:39] Maureen Johnson (OT Faculty): And that’s the ultimate goal, is to get back to living your life to the fullest. Not just living, but living your life to the fullest and doing the things that you love and want to do.

[00:01:47] Maddie Duhm (Student): We put them in the water, and then we help assist them onto their board, and then they push them out. And then we come take them back onto the beach so that they can get there nice and safe.

[00:01:56] Kirsten Sandoval (Student): They put me to work. I’ve been sprinting up and down this beach like there’s no tomorrow.

[00:02:01] Rachael Atkins (Student): This event specifically is great experience because we do get to meet a lot of new people, and as well as you get to put the skills that you’ve learned basically to the test here.

[00:02:11] Theo Luu (Student): Just from first-term PCM to assisted technology, learning about where to grab them, how to lift them, not tugging on limbs and stuff that we’re not supposed to. So definitely learning from the courses to now, I’m very prepared for the, for what today was.

[00:02:27] Kirsten Sandoval (Student): One of the individuals who participates in this quite often, she was telling us that, like, we are the competition as well as the surfers, because we are the legs on land for them. And so just kind of having that, like, background of like we are here for them was just an amazing experience. And once you get going, you’re, you’re doing it for them. You’re not doing it for yourself.

[00:02:49] Charles Webb (Stoke for Life): Our success has been built on the relationship that we have with the University of St. Augustine, and that’s on our surf camps. That’s at the US Open Adaptive Surfing Championships.

[00:03:00] Kirsten Sandoval (Student): I knew that the school provided opportunities, but I never thought it was going to be anything like this. This event in general is just reassuring that this is where I’m supposed to be, and, like, this is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life.