A look back to how we started reminds us that work continues on many of the same issues that inspired our formation.
By Terry Moakley
The first written record we have of our birth is dated May 22, 1946. It is the minutes of a meeting of an unknown number of World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries (SCIs) that took place at Halloran Army Hospital on Staten Island, New York. It was chaired by Captain Arthur Abramson, MD, himself a paraplegic, who would continue to assist fellow veterans with SCI for decades as a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation specialist at the old Bronx Veterans Hospital.
This initial East Coast gathering was inspired by word that a “Paralyzed Veterans Association” had been established several weeks earlier at the Birmingham Army Hospital in Van Nuys, California. The Halloran organizers, in their meeting minutes, noted a list of “subjects to be brought out in next meeting” that included “automobiles, housing, wheelchairs, braces, attendants”-all considerations that remain on the agenda for the well-being of United Spinal members 60 years later.
And organizers they were! At only their second meeting, the boys at Halloran approved by-laws containing 13 articles. One of those founding, hardworking members was Bob Moss, who went on to have a distinguished career as our president and executive director in the early years, and as a member of our board of directors over parts of five decades.
Within the initial two months of the Halloran group’s existence, a contingent of them traveled to the Bronx Veterans Hospital to meet with another ward full of paralyzed World War II veterans, and they exchanged letters with a third bunch of sailors and marines with SCI at St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens, New York. Not much early written information has survived about our St. Albans founders, but the boys in “Da Bronx” insured their place in history by launching a magazine which is still published today!
Then, it was called The Paraplegia News and Volume I, Number 1 was printed in July of 1946 at that hospital. It was just four pages in length, black and white, and its articles were written by patients with paraplegia, physicians, and dietitians. Its first sentence read, “For the patients we hope that it will be a medium for the exchange of ideas in helping each other.” Now known as PN and published in Phoenix, Arizona, the magazine became the official organ of all of Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA). But through this publication, which is the descendent of a chapter newsletter begun in 1948, getting accurate and timely information to our members remains a constant goal of United Spinal.
There is a congratulatory letter in the inaugural issue of The Paraplegia News from Major Harry Kessler, MD, chief of that facility’s Physical Medicine Service, who described its publication as “an important step forward” in his department’s overall goal “to help the patient to help himself.” Over the years, United Spinal has enjoyed a strong working relationship with staff at the Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey that bears his name, most recently initiating with them an annual conference in a “Life After Spinal Cord Injury” series.
There was also a “call to organize” printed in that original issue. What we had in the New York City metropolitan region when we started were three distinct groups: they journeyed to Chicago, Illinois separately in early 1947 to help form the Paralyzed Veterans Associations of America; and upon their return they came together to incorporate as Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, our predecessor group. A very small handful of these men roll among us today, but we truly owe them our gratitude as we honor 60 years of growth.
Terry Moakley is associate executive director for Communications and Public Affairs.
Meet Our Members
Sam Panepinto: Present at Creation
Salvatore “Sam” Panepinto was just 20 years old when he was injured in a Jeep accident while serving with General Patton’s Third Army in Germany after the war. Originally from Philadelphia, Sam was sent to Halloran Army Hospital on Staten Island, where he underwent rehab from 1946 to 1948.
“In those days, you were in a full body cast for six months,” he remembers. As primitive as the treatment seems now, Halloran, like other hospitals treating World War II veterans, was an innovator in spinal cord rehabilitation.
Sam’s rehab was overseen by Dr. Howard Rusk, who would go on to establish one of the nation’s premiere rehabilitation hospitals, the Rusk Institute at New York University Medical Center in Manhattan.
One of the radical notions of spinal cord injury (SCI) rehab in those days was that patients could benefit from sports like wheelchair basketball. Sam was one of those pioneers, playing for several early wheelchair basketball teams, including the Brooklyn Whirlaways.
Halloran was also the scene of some of the earliest meetings of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Sam was active in the establishment of both the national organization and its local chapter, Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, which would one day become United Spinal Association. At the same time he began a family with his beloved wife Esther. They raised a son, Joseph.
Using the skills he developed working first with survivors of Auschwitz and later with veterans addicted to drugs, Sam co-founded New York Center for Interpersonal Development, a nonprofit agency to give troubled young people on Staten Island hope and a sense of purpose. Today, Sam, who has been a widower since the early 1980s, is still active with the agency. At 78, he is a humble model of a person who lives life with SCI well and fully.
I am a Physical Therapist, Temple University 1980. I am acting as the
consultant for my mother, Harriet May Savitz. As a child I grew up riding
the backs of wheelchairs, chasing shot-puts and javelins, and experiencing
the discrimination of the disabled as we were led into the backs of
restaurants, as we watched hotel guests jump from hotel swimming pools out of
fear, as wheelchair sports team members jumped in after a hard day of
competitions, and as we faced obstacle after obstacle that these athletes overcame in order to get recognized as competitive athletes. I experienced this through the eyes of the disabled as I was the daughter of an author writing a book about the history of wheelchair sports. My father also became involved and coached a wheelchair basketball team. This was in the late 60′s early 70′s before the laws on accessibility helped to break down the mental and physical barriers that the disabled population
encountered in society on a daily basis. I was a child then and eventually
this all lead to a passion to become a physical therapist. Many of the coaches, referees, and professionals who performed the classification of the wheelchair sports athletes were Therapists. This book Wheelchair Champions, A History of Wheelchair Sports, has just been reissued and I feel that it would be an asset to any rehabilitation and educational environment for inspiration, motivation and enlightenment. Thank you for your time.
Beth Savitz Laliberte
gonesailing@optonline.net
732-681-2758
Note From Author: I am buying my own books and donating them to
Rehabilitation Centers across the country. Would you consider buying a book
and donating it to your local high school, library, hospital, or
organization concerning the disabled.
Thank You, Harriet May Savitz
Contact iUniverse 1-800-Authors (288-4677)
Book.orders@iuniverse.com… Barnes & Noble
Amazon.com
WHEELCHAIR CHAMPIONS
A HISTORY OF WHEELCHAIR SPORTS
(Illustrated with Photographs by Jim McGowan)
Originally published by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1978
NOW REISSUED 2006 by Authors Guild Backinprint.com
In celebration of the International Year of Disabled Persons, WHEELCHAIR
CHAMPIONS Received Recognition from the President’s Committee for the
Handicapped.
“This would be exciting and informative enough if it simply described the
growth of organized sports (including special facilities and equipment) for
the handicapped or described the sports careers of men and women who are
paraplegics, quadriplegics, polio victims- and it does. What it adds is a
great deal of information about attitudes toward the handicapped, facts
about their capabilities as citizens and workers as well as wheelchair
athletes, and many suggestions about ways in which the lot of the
handicapped person could be improved by such concrete changes as more
ramps…â€
-Bulletin Center for Children’s Books
“It is a story of hope for the newly injured and their families as one reads
of the accomplishment of others.â€
– Catholic Library World
“The history of wheelchair sports in the U.S. is well told in Wheelchair
Champions.â€
-Interracial Books for Children
“Harriet Savitz writes thoroughly about the sports of basketball, ping pong,
javelin, discus, shot put and club throw; and free-style and backstroke
swimming, and the boost in morale that competitive sports can provide.
Philadelphia Inquirer
WHEELCHAIR CHAMPIONS can be ordered through iUniverse.com Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
http://www.harrietmaysavitz.com
hmaysavitz@aol.com
732-775-5628
412 Park Place Avenue
Bradley Beach, N.J. 07720
CREDITS: Chicken Soup for the Golden Soul…Chicken Soup for the Sport’s Fans Soul…Chicken Soup for the Soul of America….Chicken Soup for the Grandparent’s Soul.. .Chicken Soup for the Girlfriend’s Soul…..Chicken Soup – Grandma’s Photobook…Chicken Soup for the Kids Soul 2.. Chicken Soup for the Mother and Son Soul…Chocolate for A Woman’s Courage (Chocolate Series-Fireside Books) Modern Maturity..Mature Years …22 Published Books…an ABC Afterschool Special produced by Henry Winkler of book, “Run, Don’t Walk.” essays appearing in newspapers and magazines….”Messages From Somewhere – Inspiring Stories of Life After 60″ (Publishers Weekly – 2/18/02 – Midwest Book Review 5-02- Little Treasure Publisher) PSLA 1981 Outstanding Pennsylvania Author Award (Pennsylvania School Library Association Award) Others books of Essays – “More Than Ever – A View From My 70s) “Hello Grandparents Wherever You Are†(authorhouse.com) Children’s Picture Book – “Is A Worry Worrying You†co-authored Ferida Wolff – (Tanglewood Books)
[...] Thumbing through the first marvelous issue of Action, I came across your “look back†(“In the Beginning†by Terry Moakley, January 2006). All the memories rushed in—and the pictures of Bob made it all so poignant. Tears came. [...]
I am looking for information about the early placement of accessible parking. I am told that when accessible parking was first implimented in earlier ANSI guidlelines that accessible parking was located where ever it was level enough to be put in. With out scoping requirements, this lead to re-injury of people who needed accessible parking. Do you have any history that outlines the placement of accessible parking? I was told the EPVA was the pilot agency in getting placement of accessible parking “on the shortest accessible route to the accessible entrance”
I am documenting the history for use in a Public Information Add campaign on “The Fraudulent Use of Accessible Parking”. I want to explain that parking close to the entrance is not a “priveledge” (as viewed by many drivers) but a life safety issue”