Shaun Waters

 Along with a team of helpers, Shaun has completed many long distance challenges firstly in a Mountain Ranger and then in his Delta All-Terrain Buggy.  We have known him and his family for a long time and always look forward to catching up on his adventures.  Follow his latest progress and see his previous adventures at shaunwaters.co.uk. 

Ben Russell

On the 6th May 1997, one week before his fourteenth birthday, Ben was standing on a footpath talking to a school mate when a car coming down the hill lost control, mounted the pavement, rode up the crash barrier between the road and path and hit both boys. The other lad spent one night in hospital with his injuries and made a full recovery. Ben was resuscitated at the scene and was air lifted to hospital. He had suffered a torn brain stem which has left him paralyzed apart from small head movement and eye movement. A condition known as “locked in syndrome”.  He now has his own home, and a fantastic team of carers who are only too happy to encourage Ben to lead as fulfilling a life as possible. There is a lot more information and some great pics of his exploits on Ben's own website.

We have known Ben for a while now and he has had a number of Foam-Karve seats for his Permobil power chair, and a Foam-Karve insert into his Symmetrikit home chair.  For Ben though, life had more to offer than just being driven round in his conventional chair and he had things to do and places to go that just couldn't be reached with standard equipment.  In spite of being ventilator dependent, Ben and his dad decided that a Duet Wheelchair Bike was the must have means of transport.  London Recumbents supplied the bike and Delichon made a custom lightweight Foam-Karve seat to fit the Duet seat shell.  Shortly afterwards we supplied a modified Hippocampe beach wheelchair so that Ben could realise his dream of going into the sea for the first time since his accident.  The solution to how to protect the ventilator from getting waterlogged was to put it in a front worn rucksack where it is both safe and visible - simple, but maybe not for the faint hearted!  A true pioneer, Ben is still the only Hippocampe user we are aware of that cannot breathe independently. 

 His recent achievements include taking part in the Great West Run - in fancy dress of course.  We can't wait to see the photos!