Paraplegic Rock Climbing

Video Transcript

"Hi, My name is Kim Millikan and we are here at the National Ability Center on our climbing wall. It's 32 feet of fun. As far as range of abilities and different abilities we have here, we do everything. And while I think climbing is probably beneficial for almost everyone, I've had the largest impact on the climber are the people who think they will never climb. And that tends to be people who have limited to no use in their legs. People, that's probably the big one that I've seen, where the people are just really shocked when they can get out of their wheel chair and actually pull themselves up the wall. And to discover that they have the ability to move about with their arms that they never believed they had before. We're standing at the climbing wall. And this is a 32 foot climbing wall in the National Ability Center. It opened in 2001 and since that date, many, many people have climbed here. I don't know know the exact numbers because it's impossible to count. It is an adaptive climbing wall. Which means that if you look at it it's actually like any other climbing wall that you would see in an advance gym. We have beginning, intermediate and advanced walls. But we use the walls a little bit differently based on who we're climbing with and adapt it to the individual."