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Sunday, August 12, 2007
Old Attitudes
The word amputees and surfing in an LA Times headline on my newsreader caught my eye this morning. It was a nice, little feel-good piece on veterans with recent amputations going surfing. A swimsuit manufacturer sponsored a weekend to teach them how to surf.
Just as I was about to leave the page the comments of a Washington State physical therapist leapt off the page.
“she thought the idea of amputees learning to surf sounded “very challenging and somewhat scary. It sounds on the extreme side,” she said. “For an amputee, they really can’t run any risk of injuring their other limbs or their spine.””
I had thought that professionals had become savvy enough to not say those kind of paternalistic/maternalistic thoughts out loud.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-surf12aug12,1,2398313.story?track=rss