New business provides adventures for the disabled

A husband and wife team has launched a business to help people with disabilities enjoy the outdoors.

Paraplegic Scott Crowley said going to the beach had always been an ordeal until last summer when he called local councils around Adelaide to introduce mobility beach mats - and many did.

The mats are placed over the sand so that people using wheelchairs can cross the beach.

Scott Crowley of Push Adventures said now he doesn't have to: "organise friends and help to get onto the beach, we could literally just go down to the beach as a family, you know my wife, my two kids, and just relax." 

The success of the mobility-mat project inspired Mr Crowley and his wife Clair to help people with disabilities access other kinds of adventurous activities such as surfing.
Paraplegic Scott Crowley surfs.
Paraplegic Scott Crowley surfs. Source: SBS
Clair Crowley said they wanted to help businesses realise "there are some really simple things they can do to welcome people of all abilities to their services”.

They approached Surf & Sun Surf School owner Luke Talbot-Male to demonstrate how easily his business could be adapted.

Luke Talbot-Male said: “someone to assist in carrying Scott down to the water is all that we really need, apart from having two instructors."

Peter Stewart from Parasquad South Australia said while adventure sports such as abseiling and skydiving were already available to people with a disability, their project was "opening up a much broader market".

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Published 22 August 2016 2:57pm
By Rhiannon Elston
Source: SBS News


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