Grinder deals with problems

[Max]

Grinder deals with problems By: James L. White
VALLEY SPRINGS - Jesse Grinder turned 21 about a month ago and he's looking for his first car.

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&ltAHREF=http://media.contextweb.com/sysdefaultclick.aspx?cwformat=300X250&ampPID=40376 0&gt&ltIMGSRC=http://media.contextweb.com/sysdefault.aspx?cwformat=300X250&ampPID=403760bord er=0&gt&lt/A&gt "I'm ready to drive," he says with a grin as he sits at his kitchen table.
And like any young person looking for a vehicle, he wants to make sure it's the best one he can get.
He just never thought his first car would probably be a handicapped van.
Grinder is a quadriplegic, which he explains means he's disabled in all four limbs. He hasn't walked since the crash, but he can use his hands some, although his fingers don't work.
Grinder is point blank about how he got where he is today.
"I got in a car with a drunk driver," he said. "He didn't seem drunk. I thought he was fine."
But the driver wasn't fine after all. The car went off the road and head-on into a tree, striking on Grinder's side of the car.
"I almost died," he said.
His mother, Janet, said they airlifted her son, who was 16 at the time, to Rogers, but it started storming and they had to use an ambulance from there to Little Rock.
She said they told her Jesse's neck was broken, but they didn't say how bad it was.
Now he's paralyzed from the chest down and can only get around by wheelchair.
"That's my legs," he said. "I got paralyzed and all I got out of it was a cool chair."
He had been issued an electric power wheelchair through Medicaid, but the motor fell out of it about five months ago. He's been trying to get another power chair, but it hasn't happened yet.
Since then, he's been using a manual wheelchair and relying on his mother and their friend, Cindy Kerr, to lift him when necessary. It's difficult "but at least I can still push it," he says.
Janet said they were told he would qualify for a new chair every two years, but this is the first chair he's received from Medicaid. He has gotten a few loaner chairs from the Spinal Cord Commission.
He's also looking for a van with a lift to be able to load the power chair. "I'm ready to drive," Still he never expected his first car would be a handicapped van.
He works out every other day with weights on his arms and that makes him a formidable arm wrestling foe. The onlhttp://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?B...&PAG=461&rfi=9