Disabled paddlers get ramp on the James

There's no section of the falls of the James River that Sally Wetzler won't paddle. Huguenot Flatwater. Pony Pasture. Hollywood and Pipeline rapids. At 59, she's done them all many, many times.

When she's on the water, the Dominion employee and James River Outdoor Coalition board member is just another kayaker. Nobody does a double take or thinks twice when they see her float by. That changes when she gets out of her boat.

"We'll get down to the takeout," Wetzler said, "and (my friends will) bring my wheelchair down and the other paddlers are like . . . " Her eyes go wide, mimicking shock.

Wetzler lost the use of her legs in July 1976.

An outdoor lover, she rode horses, hiked and camped. She did it all. But many of those loves fell by the wayside when bleeding in her spinal column left her incapacitated from the waist down.

Fifteen years ago, she found paddling. Not only was it something she didn't need her legs for, it made her disability invisible.

"On the water, nobody's thinking of me in terms of my disability," she said.

Just as important, it gave her the freedom to explore the natural world on her own terms.

"For the past 15 years, I've been able again to go out into the middle of the wilderness," she said. "I can go out anywhere on the river that my ability will take me. To me it's very spiritual."

On Friday, Wetzler helped launch a project that will give others like her that same freedom.

Through the combined efforts and donations of a host of local groups, disabled paddlers will soon have a special put-in/take-out ramp where Reedy Creek enters the James.

Volunteers from JROC and Dominion, which each donated $5,000 to the project, joined James River Park System employees in digging up the current boat ramp and steps.

The Coastal Canoeists and Friends of the James River Park also have given large sums to help offset the roughly $12,000 price tag. And the nonprofit Storefront for Community Design donated its engineering and architectural services free of charge.

It was a true community effort, one that city trails manager Nathan Burrell, who guided the construction effort, said should be completed in two to three weeks.

Daisy Pridgen, a Dominion spokesperson, said the handicapped-accessible ramp, the first of its kind on the James in Richmond, was part of the company's "Putting our energy to work for the environment" effort.

This ramp is one of 14 recently completed or ongoing projects in Dominion's service area. Others in Virginia include a renovation of Williams Wharf Landing in Mathews County and the building of an outdoor education classroom for Farmwell Station Middle School in Alexandria.

Wetzler thought to pitch the ramp idea to Dominion after paddling the James with a group of wounded veterans this summer.

Sportable, a local nonprofit that provides recreation opportunities for the physically disabled, arranged the outing, and Wetzler saw how difficult it was to transport all of those individuals and their gear to the river.

Her ties to Dominion, where she works in audit services, and JROC made the idea an easy sell.

With the money promised, she called Giles Harnsberger, an urban planner by trade and the manager of Storefront for Community Design.

"This is exactly the kind of project we get excited about," Harnsberger said. "They needed a ramp in two weeks; they needed engineering services."

She called on her network of architects and engineers who offer their services to Storefront pro bono, and the ramp was fast-tracked from idea to concept to near-reality.

Buzzing around the construction site in her electric wheelchair (a recent wrist surgery kept her out of her manual chair), Wetzler could finally envision the end result.

The emotions it brought up, thinking about the number of people with disabilities who would now have easy access to the freedom and peace of the James, were, understandably, more difficult to explain.

"I'm getting goose bumps," she said. "It's hard to describe."