Wheelchair-Bound Worker Sees Irony of His Situation : Disabilities: San Juan Capistrano man is now using the same access ramps he built for handicapped students at job training center.

Alfonso Gutierrez never considered that it could happen to him.

Two years ago, when he built ramps at the Regional Occupational Program center here, all he envisioned was how the center’s wheelchair-bound students would have easier access to the facility.

But now Gutierrez, 25, knows firsthand about the challenges of getting around and overcoming a disability. He is using the very ramps he crafted with his hands.

Shortly after he built the ramps, he went to Mexico to help a friend move. On a rural road in the state of Jalisco, Gutierrez lost control of the truck he was driving when an object hit the windshield. The truck rolled over twice. Somehow, the friend and his family survived relatively unscathed.

Gutierrez suffered a spinal cord injury that left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

“When I built the ramps, we had a special-education class which had a few students in wheelchairs,” he recalled. “I built the ramps for them, not me.”

He has not let the injury stop him from rebuilding his life--and a variety of objects at the ROP center, where he has resumed his occupation.

“It was so ironic that we were trying to change our facilities because of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Alfonso was in the middle of doing all that when the accident happened,” said David Wheeler, superintendent of the Regional Occupational Program.

Gutierrez was born in Laguna Beach and grew up in San Juan Capistrano, a community that knows him well--so well that after the accident, when Gutierrez was depressed and felt he had no future, it was the community, and his employers, who gave him hope.

Wheeler encouraged Gutierrez to return to his position as director of maintenance at the center. A community task force of Latinos collected donations that helped pay Gutierrez’s hospital expenses.

“When he came back (from therapy in a San Diego hospital) he was sad, he was depressed, but when he went back to work he completely changed--work for him is very important,” said Patricia Gutierrez, his 24-year-old wife, who was his girlfriend at the time of the accident.

Gutierrez attributes his recovery to his employment, which has kept him occupied and made him feel useful.

“The ROP has been real helpful in many ways,” Gutierrez said. “When they said they would hire me back, it made me feel really good. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have this job, to tell you the truth.”

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Eight years ago, Gutierrez was a sophomore at Capistrano Valley High School when he began taking ROP courses in construction, horticulture and mechanics. He also became a part-time landscaper for ROP.

ROP is a state-funded public educational service that provides practical hands-on job training and career guidance for high school students and adults. San Juan Capistrano’s program, with an enrollment of 200 students, is one of four in Orange County.

When Gutierrez graduated from high school in 1989, Wheeler was so impressed with his diligence and hard work that he offered Gutierrez a full-time job as a landscaper.

That summer, when the director of maintenance retired, Gutierrez was promoted to that position. Meanwhile he also enrolled himself in computer courses offered by the ROP.

Since the accident, Gutierrez has kept track of his inventory by tagging new equipment and logging it in his computer in case of theft or loss.

Much of the work he now does involves the use of his arms, such as engraving ROP name tags for students who intern, and stenciling wood signs for the classrooms.

When his disability allows, Gutierrez lends a helping hand in almost any situation, be it carpentry, electrical work or fixing the sprinkler system. Undaunted, he is using his wheels to take him to higher places.

“Sometimes you’re out in public and people look at you strange, like you can’t do anything,” Gutierrez said. “But I try not to see this as a handicap, I see it as being another chance in life.”

Co-workers at ROP admire the way Gutierrez has adjusted with his wheelchair and picked up his life where he left off.

It took him six months to learn, but now he drives a car with hand controls. But more important to Gutierrez, he’s back to being everybody’s handyman.

“He’s our right-hand man in everything we do,” said Silvia Ichar, an ROP career adviser who has known Gutierrez for five years. “If something falls off the wall, he’s there to pick it up. It’s with the small things that you might not notice that he’s there to do.”

Wheeler has come across many accident survivors who recover physically but not mentally.

“So many people that I’ve seen in my career that have had this happen don’t get mentally over it . . . but Alfonso has,” Wheeler said.

Gutierrez is in physical therapy and with the support of his friends and family retains a positive outlook.

“I feel that down the line I will walk again . . . there’s always hope,” Gutierrez said.