A Special Park for Special Kids : Handicapped: Santa Ana officials and the city’s Kiwanis Club plan to build a play area where youngsters in wheelchairs and those with other disabilities can have fun.

When handicapped children go to a park, they usually wait for a turn that never comes. Because playground equipment is not designed for the handicapped, they can’t get on the swings, play basketball, or even take a ride on a merry-go-round.

“Most of the time, I sit in the sandbox and watch everybody else play,” said Ketan Gandhi, 9, who is afflicted with osteogenesis imperfecta, a disease that makes the bones brittle.

His mother knows that her son wants to join the other children.

“I see his eyes. They are hurt. But he knows he can get hurt if he plays,” Mrudula Gandhi said.

Members of the Santa Ana Kiwanis Club and city park officials hope to help children like Ketan by building the county’s first playground for the handicapped, where basketball courts will have adjustable hoops and swings can accommodate wheelchairs.

On Monday, the Santa Ana City Council approved an agreement with the Kiwanis Club to begin developing the 6 1/2-acre, “barrier-free” facility within Thornton Park, located on Segerstrom Avenue. The approval also gives the club a chance to solicit donations and apply for grant funds to buy playground equipment.

The Kiwanis Club proposed the park idea 3 years ago after working with students at Santa Ana’s Carl Harvey School for physically handicapped children, said Clint Hopson, a club member. One member visited a park in Omaha, where city officials built a playground specially for the handicapped. He then persuaded the club to try to do the same in Santa Ana.

“We realized that many of the kids didn’t have a place to play and didn’t have a place to be like any other child,” Hopson said. “We made it one of our top goals to help the handicapped children have a place they can call their own.”

At first, city and club officials concentrated on expanding a therapeutics program at Fisher Park on the northern tip of the city. But that park wasn’t large enough for the specially designed equipment and also did not have enough parking spaces, said Ron Ono, a park landscape-design manager for the city.

City officials then settled on Thornton Park, which is the city’s least-developed recreational area. The “barrier-free” section is planned on a grassy knoll in the 30-acre park’s north section. The facility will include two basketball courts with hoops that adjust, a playground, special trails to the park’s lake, and a camping area with handicapped-accessible bathrooms.

The Kiwanis Club is trying to raise money and get support from other organizations to help build the park, club president Angel Rivas said. The estimated cost is at least $300,000, a good portion of which will go into buying playground equipment.

“There’s no park like this in the county,” Rivas said. “Once this is built, handicapped kids from throughout the county can come here and play.”

Such a park is a dream come true for Ketan, who wants to ride a see-saw and play on a swing. For now, he makes do by “popping wheelies” on his wheelchair and playing on the limited number of gym items at his school.

“I want to have fun just like everybody else,” he said.