Injured veterans start cycling trek

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Feb 21, 2008 | by Kristina Peterson

PALO ALTO -- An hour before the first Soldier Ride in California departed from Palo Alto's veterans hospital Wednesday, Army Spc. Saul Martinez explained his basic hand-cycle strategy.

"You just sit down and start crankin'. It's a good workout, needless to say," said Martinez, 23, a double amputee who traveled from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego to participate in the seven-day cycling trip.

Sponsored by the Wounded Warriors Project, the first regional Soldier Ride in California kicked off at the Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care facility and will finish next Tuesday in San Diego. A total of 25 veterans, including six from the Palo Alto hospital's brain trauma unit, are making the trek, many on bicycles speciallyadapted to their war injuries.

Marine Cpl. Angel Gomez started training on a hand-cycle when his legs were still paralyzed, but managed to switch to a mountain bike after months of rehabilitation work.

"I said, 'You know what? I want to try it!'" said Gomez, a hospital outpatient who now lives in Mountain View.

Gomez suffered a brain injury and lost the use of the right side of his body on a midnight mission in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005 when the seven-ton truck he was driving was hit by an improvised explosive device.

After three years of therapy, much of his leg strength has returned, but the standard bicycle configuration of brakes and gears on the right handle posed a problem for him.

So Ryan Murphy, a local independent bicycle mechanic who volunteers with the project five to six hours every week, went to work on Gomez's bicycle.

"Angel only has the use of his left hand ... I inverted it (the bike gears) so it's all on the left side," Murphy said.

Fellow Palo Alto veterans hospital patient Army Sgt. William Glass, 24, has also felt his muscles become more flexible on the 10- mile rides he took to train for the trip.

"My hands used to be stuck like this, and I had fused muscles," said Glass, curling his hand over.

An improvised explosive device in September 2006 injured Glass' brain, blew out half of his eardrum, pelted his hands and face with shrapnel and took out his left eye, "but that's basically it," he said.

Recreational therapists with the Palo Alto veterans hospital said training for the bike ride gives the wounded veterans real motivation to get physically fit.

Otherwise, "sometimes they can just become couch potatoes," said lead recreational therapist Susan Feighery.

The idea of a bike ride gels with the kind of lifestyle that appeals to the veterans, said recreational therapist Kayla Forster.

"They're young, they're active," she said. "They use it as an end goal."

Forster said the team of therapists starts the training with basics such as regaining balance before focusing on endurance. Patients with poly-trauma injuries often have cognitive barriers to cycling as well, Forster said.

"They have to re-learn the rules of the street, like looking for traffic," she said.

Minutes before the departure Wednesday, Gomez said he was not nervous about the trek.

"I'll get tired, but I'll make it," he said.

E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.