VENTURA : Wheelchair Design Provides Beach Access

For 22-year-old Marcel Pichon, spending a day at the beach and being able to touch the ocean was an unusual treat.

Despite the chilly weather, Pichon, an Ojai resident, enjoyed the sand and the water at Marina Cove Beach this week, as his friend Vincent Peterson pushed him in a special wheelchair along the water’s edge.

Pichon is one of nearly 15,000 disabled Ventura County residents who will be able to cruise the beach and venture into the ocean in a special wheelchair that can be pushed on the sand and in up to six inches of water.

The brightly colored chair, known as the surf chair, was donated to the Marina Cove Beach by the city of Ventura.

The city paid $950 for the chair with money obtained during a fund-raiser last spring, said Renee Gomez, a recreation program coordinator with the city.

The chair is available, free of charge, to residents daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. To use the chair, disabled residents should contact the lifeguard on duty and should have someone who can push the chair. The chair is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The chair has a royal-blue umbrella for sun protection and oversized plastic wheels designed to move easily through sand and water.

This is the second chair of its kind in Ventura County. San Buenaventura State Beach has had a similar chair, which can be used daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., since 1992, Gomez said.

Amy Pichon, Marcel’s mother, said the chair will make her son’s outings to the ocean more pleasurable.

“We don’t go to the beach that often because it is difficult,” she said. “But now we probably will come more often.”