Goals for the Disabled

Erik Weihenmayer’s feat at becoming the first blind person to reach the summit of Mt. Everest is truly remarkable, as are similar achievements of other handicapped athletes (“Disabled Athletes Determined to Raise the Bar,” June 11). Using accomplishments such as his, however, to somehow justify expenditures for every type of handicap accommodation risks ignoring the realities of the handicapped population.

Should we, for example, now spend huge sums to make Everest accessible by wheelchair? Should $30,000 to $50,000 have been spent to make a 38-bed mountain hut in the White Mountains wheelchair accessible? Despite efforts of the Northwest Passage Group to demonstrate the propriety of these expenditures the real test will be in the frequency with which the facilities are used by the handicapped. No one objects to the participants or sponsors financing such modifications if they desire, however, to make such public expenditures on behalf of a few because they love the woods clearly ignores the competing demands of other less fortunate handicapped persons lacking an advocate for their favorite activity.

Furthermore, it clearly ignores the competing demands society has for scarce resources. Perhaps spending $25,000 on construction of a lookout site would have been more appropriate. Expenditures made on the possibility, regardless of how remote, that a handicapped person might one day want to use an accommodation can only be described as wasteful and risk ignoring the real needs of those in the handicapped community.

EDWARD R. SCOTT Los Angeles

*

Thank you for using the word “disabled” instead of “handicapped” in “Disabled Athletes Determined to Raise the Bar.” As a former athlete and teacher, I am greatly inconvenienced by my disability, but I won’t be handicapped until I stop setting and attaining personal goals and redefining success.

Regarding sports enjoying equal access, disabled persons should try shooting. Not only does the needed extreme concentration help one temporarily forget about pain, but it isn’t necessarily physically taxing.

LESLIE WATKINS Claremont