Immobilized Surfer Really Gets Moving

Chris McAleer’s friends got together this week to buy him a van. It’s his next step toward independence, and the type of career he’d never considered before. To McAleer, that means before the accident.

A lot of things about McAleer have changed since then. And not just living his life in a wheelchair for the past three years. . . .

McAleer, now 26, had just one goal after his 1990 graduation from Tustin High School. To surf. Surf and party.

“I was a party boy,” he said. “I had a night job valet-parking cars. Just enough to pay the rent and buy food. By day, I just surfed. Sometimes two, three times a day. Surf and hang out with friends. It’s all I thought about.”

June 10, 1995, was a small day for McAleer. “Small day” for a surfer meant the waves were just average near 48th Street in Newport Beach. But it was the first day warm enough that he could shed his wetsuit and surf in just his bathing trunks. Maybe because it was a small day, he says now, “I let my guard down.”

He took a tumble in the water, unaware that just below its surface lay a sandbank. His head twisted as he fell face first into the packed sand. Lifeguards applying CPR saved his life. But McAleer was left a quadriplegic.

Two months at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach followed by many months of physical therapy at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton gave him limited use of his arms and hands. The wheelchair gave him time to think about his life.

“I grew up real fast,” he chuckled. “Talk about a reality check.”

I’d been forewarned that McAleer, who lives with his parents in Tustin, was quick with the one-liners. He was telling me about his computer: “I used to surf, now I surf the Net.” And about the family’s backyard pool: “All I can do is flail around like a wounded duck, but it’s fun. And great exercise for me.”

He’s easy to like, especially after you see how he shed that whole surf-and-party mentality.

Now McAleer works afternoons at St. Cecilia, the K-8 school he attended himself, and where his mother, Shelly, teaches fifth grade. He supervises the playground activities and tutors during class time.

McAleer also spends several days each month as spokesman for Project Wipeout. That’s an ocean-safety awareness program set up by Hoag Hospital. McAleer goes before school groups to tell them his own story, and give them numerous safety tips.

“I ask students, ‘How many of you take a running dive into the water?’ All the hands go up. That’s something you should never do. You have to know what’s out there first.”

But how do you know, I asked McAleer, that there’s going to be a sandbank 200 yards from the shoreline? There is usually swirling water above where sand has piled up, he said. There’s another good tip: How many times have you seen surfers at the beach sit on their boards and paddle with their hands out to the waves? The safer way, McAleer said, is to either swim or walk out to your destination. That way you’ll know if there’s anything unsafe below the water’s surface.

These classroom sessions have made McAleer committed to a career as either a teacher or youth counselor. But McAleer had no college credits before his accident. He has several years of school ahead of him for teaching credentials.

And that means he needs a specially equipped van--with a ramp and hand controls--to drive himself to classes he wants to take at Irvine Valley College.

“It’s the next step toward making him mobile,” said his father, Joe McAleer.

Unbeknown to the McAleer family, a lot of their friends had been wanting to do something special for the young man. Many of them had known Joe McAleer in the old Santa Ana 20-30 club, a civic organization for guys in their 20s and 30s who raise money for good causes.

Bob Wish of Laguna Hills said it hit him in bed about 3 a.m. that the core members of the old club could do the same thing for Chris McAleer. The response has been pretty impressive. More than 400 people attended a $100-a-plate benefit dinner for him this week at the Twin Palms Restaurant in Newport Beach. The dinner plus a silent auction raised enough money to pay for the $35,000 van, and plenty more to contribute toward his education.

Chris McAleer’s response: “I’m just overwhelmed. My whole family is.”

But Wish says it’s Chris McAleer who has been overwhelming people: “He probably doesn’t know it, but he’s brought a lot of people closer together.”

The McAleer family--Chris has two sisters and a brother--are perhaps closer too.

“Before, the minute dinner was over I was out the door,” Chris McAleer reflected. “Now I cherish every moment I have to be with family.”

A bonus at the benefit dinner for McAleer was that many of his surfer friends helped put on the affair. For them his accident has been their own reality check.

“Now when we get together to talk, our discussions are much deeper,” he said. “But there are still some who don’t come around, who are still just carefree surfers. I don’t judge them. But I do want to make them aware of the dangers.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com