Elaine Wolfe was 18 when she broke her neck in a swimming accident.
The spinal cord injury meant she'd never walk again, and would have no use of her hands and only minimal use of her arms. What it didn't mean is that she would never go to school, travel or lead an independent life.
Her husband, Jim Phillips, and their pre-teen and teenaged daughters can attest to this: Mom's had her own wheels since the girls were born. Her most recent vehicle is the 2004 Chevrolet Suburban parked in their driveway.
What drives Elaine is her press-ahead spirit - with some help from her father.
Cliff and Elizabeth Wolfe have seven daughters, of whom Elaine and twin sister Laurie are the youngest. After the 1983 accident, they accepted that Elaine would be in a wheelchair for life. But they also recognized her need for normalcy, and this became the impetus for KVB Manufacturing, the mobility production company they started 16 years ago.
A self-declared tinkerer and inventor, Cliff wanted to provide his youthful daughter with a vehicle that appealed to her, one she would enjoy driving. He started with a 1988 Chevy Blazer that he equipped with hand controls and a power chair lift he patented as the Elaine Anne Wheelchair Lift System.
"It was the prototype," Elaine said. "It drove without fail and is still running. I loved that Blazer and didn't want to give it up, but with my girls getting older, we needed more space."
With a large portion of spinal cord injuries occurring in young people, the Wolfes wanted to broaden the choices beyond the full-sized vans and minivans that are usually used.
"Those vehicles," Elaine said, "are not exactly attracting males who want to go out four-wheel driving."
KVB is the only company retrofitting four-wheel drive vehicles, pickup trucks and sport utilities. The lift goes into the driver's side and doesn't affect the rest of the vehicle.
A lift and hand controls can cost $54,000, and that's in addition to the price of the vehicle. Options such as a joystick and voice controls can take the price significantly higher. Fortunately, insurance offsets some of these costs.
And there's a new line ready to go into production. The Wolfe Scooter Lift, designed for the "personality mobility scooters" used by the elderly and people with disabilities, is a platform that enables the rider to load the scooter into a minivan quickly and efficiently. Like the Elaine Anne Lift, it's a one-person operation.
Six people work at the KVB plant off Highway 43 in Smiths Falls, Ont. It takes upwards of three months to get a vehicle ready, but the new production manager, Wentworth Marshall, is confident output can increase to respond to burgeoning orders.
KVB has added lifts to 100 vehicles, all on the GMC platform, including a 3/4-ton Silverado pickup that a man in Montana ordered so he could add a fifth wheel and continue operating his ranch, and a stretch Suburban outfitted for a disabled king from the Middle East.
Ottawa Paraplegic Mike Nemesvary used a KVB-outfitted Blazer for his 40,455-kilometre Round the World Challenge in 2001.
