Gregory Freeman: After Disability, A Good Life. P-D 2/18/1994

Headline: AFTER DISABILITY, A GOOD LIFE
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Fri., Feb. 18, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 5B, Edition: FIVE STAR

IT'S BEEN 12 years since Dietrich Smith was riddled with bullets as he sat in a car at a drive-in bank, attacked for court testimony he had given in another shooting.
Paralyzed from the waist down, Smith was fortunate to have a family that supported him. "They told me, `You're the same person you always were - you just can't walk any more.' " Smith, now a field researcher for the criminology department at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, credits much of his resiliency to his strong family upbringing and the support he received after the shooting.

Unfortunately, Smith said, he's seeing more and more people - particularly black men - finding themselves paralyzed as victims of violent crime. And a good number of them, he says, don't know how to handle their new situation.
"A lot of times, black males give up, " said Smith, who is black. "There is a support system in place. It's not great, but it's good enough.

"It's taboo to talk about certain things in our community. Talking about sex is taboo. Talking about homosexuality is taboo. And talking about someone in a wheelchair is taboo. It just isn't done. It's not macho or something to be in a wheelchair."
That machismo, he says, causes some men to first ask whether they'll be able to have sex again before asking whether they will survive or how they can live a healthy lifestyle. "It's a real problem, " he says.

With guns falling into more and more hands, gunshot wounds have become the No. 1 cause of spinal cord injuries, meaning more people in wheelchairs than ever before.
Max Starkloff has seen many of these gunshot victims. "So many of these people disappear when they leave the hospitals, " says Starkloff, executive director of Paraquad, a group that promotes independent living among people with disabilities.
"They're not in the system. No one knows where they've gone, what they're doing. The only time a hospital may see them again may be if they're in very poor health."

Part of the problem, says Starkloff, is reaching the gunshot victims themselves. Although most who have found themselves with disabilities after a violent crime are offered counseling and support while they're in the hospital, he said, "a lot of people just aren't listening at that point."
Instead, many worry about the likelihood that they may have to use a wheelchair the rest of their lives, for example. Most victims are people without clout, folks who don't know what resources are available to them.
Or, as Smith suggests, refuse to use them.

Instead, some crime victims wallow in despair, assuming that their lives are effectively over.
"There are a lot of people whose mind-set is, `Well, I'm disabled, I'll collect my Social Security check and get my Section Eight housing and this is it for my life, ' " said Linda Baker Oberst, program director for Paraquad. Some refuse to even take care of their bodies any more.
"People need to know that they can have a life after disability and they can have a successful life, " Oberst said.

Others leave the hospital thinking that their lives will be the same. Instead, they may encounter all sorts of difficulties. If they live in an inaccessible house, that may be the first problem they're confronted with. They also may find friends treating them differently, or not at all.
"When one leaves the hospital and goes into the real world, sometimes a disability is viewed as freaky or strange, and it can be really traumatic for that person, " Starkloff said.

Smith counsels many who find themselves in wheelchairs after violent crimes. "Many of these fellows who have been shot like the `high roller' lifestyle, " Smith said, making money illegally through drug sales or other means. "They think their destiny in the world is to be a gang banger or a violent offender and that they can go back. Well, obviously they weren't successful in that, or they wouldn't have wound up where they are. It's hard to make that clear to them."

But even for those who were shot as innocent bystanders, the change in their lives can be trauma-filled.
"The toughest thing I ever had to do was adjusting to a wheelchair, " Smith said. "Raising a child is easy. Getting a degree was easy, compared to this. This isn't easy, but it can be done. That's the message I think a lot of folks need to hear."

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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