About two hours outside Atlanta, a paved road turns to gravel as it winds through the mountains, leading to the home of retired military sergeant Pete Sutherland. Nowadays, neighbors aren’t surprised to see Sutherland traveling up and down the road—a dramatic difference from several years ago.
At age 28, Sutherland was wounded in Iraq. For years afterward, he struggled with everyday tasks, like buying laundry detergent, while using a wheelchair to get around. “Once I became disabled,” he says, “my world became a lot smaller.”
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Then a friend told him about Segs4Vets, a St. Louis nonprofit that gives Segways to veterans with disabilities. Frontenac resident Jerry Kerr co-founded the group in 2005. Kerr was never in the military, but a diving accident had left him paralyzed from the neck down. At the time, his only mobile option was a wheelchair. “When you see life at the wheelchair level, you see life from people’s waist down,” Kerr says. “People look right over the top of you—they don’t even see you. In large nature, you disappear.”
Then, in 2001, inventor Dean Kamen rolled out the Segway. For Kerr, it changed everything. It made him taller, more mobile. He wanted to share the technology with others, wounded veterans like Sutherland.
Today, Sutherland serves on Segs4Vets’ Warrior Board, a group of veterans who decide which applicants receive Segways. Over time, the nonprofit has given Segways to more than 1,600 veterans. They too appreciate the sense of empowerment that Sutherland and Kerr experienced.
“We don’t get to choose what happens to us,” says Kerr, “but we can always choose how we respond to it.”
