The National Disabled Veterans Sports Clinic celebrated its 23rd anniversary event with 370 veteran participants, more than 200 certified adaptive ski instructors, and 461 volunteers at Snowmass Village, Colorado, March 29–April 3. Though the event was set in a skier's paradise near Aspen, adaptive ski events were only some of the activities available to veterans and their families. The event was jointly sponsored by the Veterans Administration (VA) and Disabled American Veterans (DAV).
 |
| Joey Bozik trains on a bi-ski. |
"Recreation therapy is sometimes…minimized among therapies," said Sandy Trombetta, founder and director of the event, "but recreation is a real need in everyone's life." Trombetta, a former recreation therapist, told The O&P EDGE that he founded the event because he had seen in his own veteran clients "what the power of nature and skiing does for [veterans'] minds, bodies, attitudes, spiritual sense, and emotions…. The feeling of freedom is overwhelming. "
Joey Bozik, a former military police (MP) officer with the 92nd Airborne, endured a bilateral transfemoral amputation and a right transradial amputation when his Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) in 2004. "The clinic is always great, with…the way that Aspen opens its arms to us," said Bozik, who came to the clinic for the fourth year in a row with his wife. "You come away from this week feeling like the cup is full again and you can keep going on for the rest of the year, until it comes around again."
Activities offered during the week included downhill and cross-country adaptive skiing, scuba diving, sled hockey, snowmobiling, rock climbing, fencing, golf, Snow Cat rides, and self-defense training.
"This event catapults people into thinking about themselves so much differently than before," Trombetta said, "so we created other venues, like shooting sports…to captivate people even more and help segue them into living this way once they return home."
Raymond Dempsey, National DAV commander, encourages "anybody who can get out here, whether as a volunteer or a participant, just to come out here one day to see the ‘miracle on the mountain.' You'll be surprised at what disabled veterans can do."
