A New Tack to Physical Therapy

In 1990, Sarah Everhart was riding her bike in training for a triathlon when a car struck her.

The then-23-year-old University of Virginia graduate found her young life turned upside down after the accident, which left her paralyzed from the chest down.

Early in her rehabilitation, her physical therapist told her about Shake-A-Leg, an organization that operates a variety of therapeutic and recreational programs for disabled people each summer in Newport, R.I. Its focus is on spinal-cord and other nervous-system injuries.

She thought her therapist was joking. “You want me to go camp? Come on, I’m disabled,” she recalls saying.

But two years later, she attended Shake-A-Leg’s Body Awareness Program, which helps people who have already undergone initial physical therapy for a serious injury. Ms. Everhart said it changed her life.

“It was the first time no one told me I couldn’t do something because of my injuries,” she explained. “It was the first time I was asked ‘Don’t you want to try this?’”

Today Ms. Everhart is Shake-A-Leg’s program director, overseeing its therapy programs for adults and teen-agers, sailing program, and children’s camp.

She reminds participants that when they sail, they leave their wheelchair — and their disability — on the dock.

“Having control of the boat is really nice, because there are so many things you can’t control,” she observes. “Just being outside and feeling the wind in your face is a wonderful feeling. You forget everything you are stressed about, and you think, ‘Maybe if I can sail, I can do something else.’”

The organization recently moved its headquarters to Providence, R.I., where it hopes to open a year-round fitness center.

Here, a boy learns how to sail in Shake-A-Leg’s “Confidence Is Cool” program, a day camp offering sailing, swimming, arts and crafts, and other traditional camp activities for disabled children.