UC Merced student, spinal cord injury survivor awarded scholarship to help others
The transition to a wheelchair can be difficult for a person who is recently injured. UC Merced student Joseph Bello knows what it’s like to suddenly have your life change.
Bello, 23, who lives in Turlock, has been in a wheelchair since suffering a spinal chord injury after an all-terrain vehicle accident in 2014 while he was a senior at Hilmar High.
Bello recently was awarded a $15,000 scholarship from the Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship Foundation. The Strauss scholarships fund public-service projects that college students have proposed and will carry out during their junior or senior year.
Approximately $7,000 of Bello’s scholarship will go toward helping newly disabled wheelchair users when they try to get their first wheelchair. According to Bello, it often takes several months from the time of injury to receive a correctly fitting, easily usable wheelchair of your own.
Bello’s work will help to expand Bay Area nonprofit organization SCI Active Network’s program “Share a Chair,” which loans high-quality wheelchairs to newly-injured individuals to bridge the gap until they receive their own wheelchair.
“A new chair never fits quite right, your first chair especially,” Bello said. “A lot of the places that have wheelchairs to loan out only have one or two loaner chairs. A lot of these dealers are trying to help out, but they’ve never been through this before. They don’t know the type of wheelchair someone needs. It’s totally foreign to them.
“I was injured in February and I still didn’t have my chair until June when I graduated.”
Adjusting to a new normal
Bello’s injury happened during a vacation trip to Pismo Beach. He was riding his quad bike at the Oceano Dunes when he was flipped off the bike while coming down a hill. The vehicle landed on top of Bello, fracturing two vertebrae. He eventually had surgery in which three of his vertebrae were fused together.
Bello went from a star linebacker on the football team to initially having no movement or feeling from the chest down.
“I was blessed,” Bello said.” I have a great supportive family. A big thing for me was the community rallied around me. Initially, I didn’t want to go out in public. I felt like people would just stare at me. I later realized it didn’t matter. The people who were staring wanted to help.”
With the help of intensive physical therapy the past six years, Bello describes himself as relatively independent.
He can go to school, he can drive and, go shopping. He’s able to use his arms and that allows him to use a manual wheelchair. With assistance he can also stand.
Bello even hopes to start wakeboarding with specialized equipment soon.
“He’s worked so hard,” said Hilmar football coach Frank Marques. “He and his parents have put as much into his recovery as humanly possible. It’s astonishing, their hard work and dedication. I’m super proud of him because it’s been a long battle for him.”
Bello is majoring in mechanical engineering and is on track to graduate from UC Merced in 2021.
Giving Back
While a newly-disabled person waits for their first wheelchair, they usually go to a dealer who may have one or two wheelchairs to loan on site.
The “Share a Chair” program has 15 wheelchairs in its inventory, which gives people who are recently injured more options to find a chair that fits them better.
Bello’s project will help fund the refurbishment and repair of about 15 chairs. Eventually he wants to work with other nonprofit organizations to expand the program to other areas of the state and possibly other areas of the country.
Bello was elated when he found out he had earned the scholarship that will also help pay for his education.
“I’m ecstatic,” he said. “ I put a lot of effort into the application process. When I found out I won, I was really excited. It’s an honor for me. I’m excited to give back to the community like I haven’t been able to do in the past. You can’t quantify the confidence a nice chair gives someone. A lot of people who are recently injured are suffering from depression or other mental illnesses. So anything that can help them have some confidence helps. It’s one less thing they have to worry about.”
Knowing Bello and his family so long, Marques isn’t surprised to see him find a way to help people.
“I think it says a lot about his character,” Marques said. “Before the accident, he was a student-body type of guy, an All-American kid, the type of kid everyone wanted to be around. He’s always had a huge heart and now, after the accident, he’s carrying it on. He’s always been a super human being, so this doesn’t surprise me.”
If anybody would like to donate to the “Share a Chair” program, donations can be made to the SCI Active Network online at http://www.sciactivenetwork.org/donate.
This story was originally published June 21, 2020 at 7:35 AM.
