CamoTherapy: See How a Quadriplegic Shoots a Rifle

In this 7-minute, show-n-tell video, my good friend Ron Wagner helps me demonstrate how we use my adaptive shooting gear to hunt as a team.

But first, let me provide a few details. Although I’m not technically labelled a quadriplegic, ALS has rendered my legs too frail to walk and my arms/hands too weak to handle firearms. However, the debilitating disease never diminished my desire to hunt (or my sense of humor). I knew that if I wanted to keep hunting, I’d face many challenges requiring an adapt-and-overcome attitude.

I found the special equipment I needed at Be Adaptive ( www.beadaptive.com ): a Scope Camera ($750) and a TM100 sip-activated trigger control ($250). A “point man”—usually Ron—handles and aims the rifle while both of us view the sight picture on the scopecam’s 2.5-inch color monitor. I then decide when to activate the trigger.

We had to make two modifications to the trigger control to suit my style of hunting. First we extended the wires to give the point man more freedom of movement, and then we built a harness to connect two 9-volt batteries. The TM100 is designed to draw juice from a 12-volt battery, but my manual wheelchair has no such power source.

Like my hunts, this project required a team effort: My aide, Luiz Paier, proved himself a very capable cameraman on our recent trip to Uruguay. Ron conducted an informative show-n-tell session, and I edited the video. Oh, and the unsuspecting hog showed up right on cue and performed his role flawlessly.

If you have any questions about the equipment or how we use it, please post them in the comments section.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yex2SYRl1-s

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