Wounded veterans at Walter Reed give wheelchair lacrosse a try

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Wounded veterans at Walter Reed give wheelchair lacrosse a try

By Mark Berman, Published: September 24

They had strapped on gloves, donned helmets, grabbed their lacrosse sticks and lobbed balls around the gym Tuesday in preparation for a scrimmage. And then they got one key piece of instruction:

It’s better to throw the ball over a teammate’s head than at his feet, especially if, like the small group gathered at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center lacrosse clinic, the teammate is in a wheelchair.

Wounded and recovering service members lined up Tuesday on a court in Bethesda to see how the fast-paced sport commonly played on a field would translate to two wheels in a room. ... Sports such as wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby are better known; they’ve become staples of the Paralympic Games. Wheelchair lacrosse, by comparison, is a little less established.
....

“We have taken the men’s field game and tried to translate it, as best we could, to wheelchairs,” said Ryan Baker, who co-founded Wheelchair Lacrosse USA in 2009.

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post - Matthew Grashen, a 23-year-old Marine who was injured by a makeshift bomb last month in Afghanistan, participates in a wheelchair lacrosse clinic at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Wheelchair Lacrosse USA

[Warpy]

1. Wheelchair sports are fun to watch

because they typically move quite a bit faster.

The wheelchair athletes go first at the Boston Marathon (and likely others) because they are much faster than the runners.

Still, it would have been far better to stay out of wars so they could keep their legs and spinal cords. Wheelchair sports just convince them that their lives might have changed, but they're far from over.