Courtesy Photo | Sgt. Kailey Good-Hallahan, immunizations noncommissioned officer-in-charge with...... read more read more
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Story by: Capt. Jacqueline Ralston
BAGHDAD—Over the course of two weekends, members of the 299th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, United States Division – Center, in partnership with the nonprofit organization “Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids” and the Provincial Reconstruction Team-Baghdad, participated in a project fitting disabled Iraqi children into specialty wheelchairs.
A 2007 population study done by United Nations Children’s Fund found that one in seven children under the age of one in Iraq have some sort of congenital disorder, which is significantly higher than the worldwide average of one in 500. The most common debilitating disorders include cerebral palsy and spina bifida.
Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids has given away over 800 wheelchairs since 2005 to families with a member who has special needs. While most of the recipients are children, some are disabled adults. If a person meets the size requirements for the chair, he or she will be fit to a wheelchair. The wheelchairs, donated by generous U.S. citizens, are standard sizes which are adjusted to fit a child and can be adjusted as he or she grows.
On Feb. 18, 1st Lt. Teresa Egan, a nurse with Company C, 299th BSB and a Wauwatosa, Wis., native, and Capt. Diana Crane, chaplain with 299th BSB and a Portland, Ore., native, made their way to Forward Operating Base Prosperity in Baghdad’s International Zone for a much-anticipated “Wheelchair Weekend.”
Egan, the battalion’s lead for the project, began working with PRT-B and Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids in the beginning of January. The project’s goal was to fit 60 disabled Iraqi children into specialty pediatric wheelchairs to improve the quality of life for both the children and their families.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Andrew Fittler, with the PRT-B, served as the project head.
“After almost three months of working on this project, things finally came together,” Fittler said. “Even with all the headaches, knowing we were able to help the families and seeing the smiles on the children’s faces made it all worthwhile.”
That day, over 60 people volunteered their time at FOB Prosperity to help assemble 62 wheelchairs. These volunteers represented the Army, Marines, Air Force, and Navy, and included ranks from junior-enlisted to senior officers, as well as civilian contractors from multiple countries.
“The project was truly a multinational effort,” Egan said.
After a brief orientation on how to assemble the wheelchairs, the volunteers paired up and got to work assembling the wheelchairs.
Each chair took two people and approximately 30 minutes to assemble. By the end of the day, all of the wheelchairs were complete and loaded into a vehicle for transportation to the community the following day.
On the second day of the mission, 24 soldiers and members of the reconstruction team went to a local community building and fit 17 children into the wheelchairs they had assembled. Although the initial assembly was complete, fitting a chair to a child can take up to one hour depending on each child’s ailments. The goal in fitting these chairs is to prevent pressure sores and to keep the child in an anatomically correct position.
The following weekend of March 5, Egan was accompanied by 1st Sgt. William Barnes, of Asbury Park, N.J., and Sgt. Kailey Good-Hallahan, of Muncie, Ind., both with Company C, 299th BSB, for a second day to give away more of the wheelchairs.
“It was awesome to see everyone working together for a common goal—private or lieutenant colonel, Army, Navy, Air Force or civilian—it didn’t matter,” Good-Hallahan said. “What mattered was fitting the wheelchairs to the children to help the families.”
Spc. Austin Smith, a medic with the FOB Prosperity Troop Medical Clinic and a Wausau, Wis., native, helped with both the assembly and fitting the children to chairs.
“Being able to help these families and children has made this deployment worthwhile,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 03.05.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 03.15.2011 04:55 |
| Story ID: | 67070 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 181 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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