La Crescenta : Wheelchair Given to School

At Rosemont Junior High School in La Crescenta, getting students who have sprained an ankle or are suffering an asthma attack to the health office from the hillside playing fields, three ramp levels down, is not easy.

Now, thanks to the recent donation of a wheelchair from a Glendale hospital, it will be a lot easier.

School health clerk Cynthia Pageler said Rosemont had a 25-year-old wheelchair, but could not afford to buy a new one, which costs about $1,500.

The PTA contacted Mary Ann Martin, manager of Glendale Adventist Hospital’s Occupational Medicine Center, for help. Martin made a few telephone calls and got a nearly new chair from the hospital.

Pageler said the school uses a wheelchair about once a week. Most of the injuries--usually sprains, cuts and asthma attacks--occur on the playing fields at the lower levels of the campus.

“We have ramps that go all the way up, but we have three different levels,” she said. “These kids are full-sized kids by the time they are 12, 13 years old. You can’t carry them.”