THOUSAND OAKS : 600-Mile Trip in Wheelchair Raises Money

Ken Cummings’ method of getting to San Francisco drew curious looks from motorists on Ventura County’s streets Thursday.

Seated in a 200-pound, emerald-green motorized wheelchair, the 38-year-old San Diego man, who is a quadriplegic, is on a 600-mile fund-raising trip for the American Paralysis Assn., collecting nickel pledges for every mile he logs in the chair.

Cummings hopes to raise $30,000 to fund research on spinal cord injuries. The group’s goal is to make spinal cord injury victims such as Cummings able to walk again.

He left San Diego on Sunday and expects to reach San Francisco by Oct. 21. He is accompanied by a four-member crew, including a trained medic who rides beside him on a mountain bike, and three riding in a van equipped for rest stops.

“This brings people closer together,” he said during a break Thursday in a Thousand Oaks parking lot off Hillcrest Drive. “And I have fun doing it.”

He became paralyzed after breaking his neck in a 1982 diving accident, one of the more common causes of spinal cord injuries. Of the 500,000 people paralyzed in the United States, 82% are men, according to the association. Nearly half the injuries stem from car accidents.

“I’m 6 feet 5 and I weighed 235 pounds then,” Cummings said. “I hadn’t been on a diving board in a long time. I went through the water pretty fast.”

He hit the bottom eight and a half feet below, breaking first his arm and then his neck.

“It was hard at first, when I was beginning to adjust to my disability,” he said. “But I’ve always been pretty active.”

The group, with Cummings leading the way, is trying to stick to bicycle trails and side streets. But for brief stretches, they will be on busy streets, including business routes along the Ventura Freeway. At the Conejo Grade, he got into the van; the wheelchair does not have adequate brakes to handle the steep downhill.

In 1987, Cummings raised $20,000 in a similar trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

He said people have treated them well along the way, waving, honking and donating an additional $800 at gas stations and rest stops.

The biggest problem has been the changing temperature, Cummings said. His injury makes him particularly sensitive to heat and cold. He had to put on a thick pair of sheepskin boots for the stretch from Thousand Oaks to Ventura.

Awaiting him in San Francisco is a police escort into the city and a seven-course Italian meal in North Beach.

“It’s a neat way to see the state, “ he said, squinting out into the sunlight. “I might just do it again next year.”