http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/aaron-fotheringham-extreme-wheelchair-athlete.html ODDITY CENTRAL Aaron Fotheringham – Extreme Wheelchair Athlete Impossible is nothing! I love that motto and it fits Aaron Fotheringham perfectly. He’s a 17-year old Extreme wheelchair athlete, competing against BMX riders in skate-park competitions. Fotheringham suffers from Spida Bifida and has been spending his life in a wheelchair since the age of 8. As a young kid he used to watch his brother ride his BMX at the skate-park and one day he took his advice and started riding in his wheelchair. He loved it so much he never stopped since. He got a new, lighter wheelchair, with four-wheel suspension that allowed him to perform most of the tricks BMX riders perform. In 2006 Aaron Fotheringham ranked forth in a BMX competition in Sunny Springs Skate Park. He has suffered many injuries while practicing his tricks although he first tries them out on cushions and on hard plastic sheets before performing them on skateboard ramps. ============================ http://www.aaronfotheringham.com/ Aaron Fotheringham's website (news, events, bio, pics, videos) BIO Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham is an 19 year-old wheelchair athlete from Las Vegas, Nevada. Aaron was born with Spina Bifida, a birth defect of the spinal cord. For Aaron this means his legs don’t work. He is the third of six children, all adopted. Aaron never let anything stop him. Even as a baby and small child, he did anything anyone else his age could do, he just had to figure out how to make it work for him. He rolled over, sat up, and even crawled (on hands and belly, no leg action) pretty much on schedule. Within days of receiving his first “walker” he was off and running. Next came crutches, which he mastered quickly. He would put on a “Superman” cape and blast down the hall on crutches believing, as any other 4 year old, that he could fly. Aaron started riding at skate parks at the age of 8 when his older brother Brian said he should drop in a quarter pipe. He had been going to the park with Brian and their dad for weeks, but Aaron would just watch from behind the fence. The first time was scary, and he fell, but he was never one to give up just because it wasn’t easy. So he tried again. From then on he was hooked. He has won a few BMX free style competitions, including the 2005 Vegas AmJam BMX finals, but for Aaron that is secondary to the joy of riding and hanging out with friends at the skate parks. Over the last four years Aaron has challenged himself to try progressively more difficult tricks; carving, grinding, power-sliding, and spinning are just a few of his accomplishments. In 2005, he perfected a mid air 180-degree turn. Then on July 13th, 2006, he landed the first wheelchair back flip. Since that time he has perfected the back flip, he can do a handplant, wheelers, all manners of rollouts, and a huuuuuuge trick in his back pocket. After posting that “first ever back flip” on the Internet life has changed for Aaron. With his mother helping with scheduling and information, he has had the opportunity to travel within the US as well as internationally. He has attended summer camps for disabled children as a coach/mentor. He has been featured in magazines, and newspapers, and sports television. He receives and responds to e-mails from all over the world. He enjoys showing young kids with disabilities that a wheelchair can be a toy, not a restriction. He loves helping younger children learn how to handle their chairs in new and different ways and teaching them a trick or two. Someday he hopes to design “the most wicked” chair in the world. Aaron has a passion for what he does, not only is it a lot of fun, but he wants to change the world’s perception of people in wheelchairs, as well as helping everyone see their own challenges in a new way. Aaron’s appeal is universal. You certainly do not have to be disabled to be inspired by what he is able to do. ======================== http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Fotheringham Wikipedia Aaron Fotheringham From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Aaron FotheringhamAaron Fotheringham (born November 8, 1991 in Las Vegas, Nevada) is an extreme wheelchair athlete who performs tricks adapted from skateboarding and BMX. Fotheringham calls his activity ‘extreme sitting’. He claims to be the first person to successfully perform a backflip[1] in a wheelchair at the age of 14 and a double backflip[2] at the age of 18. He performs other tricks in his wheelchair including a 180 degree 'aerial'. He plans to fuse the back flip with the 180 aerial into what is known as a ‘flair’. Aaron Fotheringham performing the backflip Fotheringham has Spina Bifida; he has used a wheelchair since the age of three and although he used crutches early on, he has been in a wheelchair fulltime since the age of eight. He would watch his brother riding his BMX at the skate park, and one day his brother told him that he should try riding his chair in the park. Aaron later noted that “I did, and I was hooked”[3]. Fotheringham got a new wheelchair, a Colours In Motion's Boing!" which was both lightweight and featured four wheel suspension. This enabled him to perform the same sorts of tricks that skateboarders and BMXers can do, as the suspension cushioned his landings. Aaron has further worked with Colours Wheelchairs to help refine their designs in real-world situations, and has been given a custom-made chair that is in his words ‘pretty much indestructible’[3]. He now competes in the Vegas Am Jam series in skate park competitions, usually competing against BMX riders. He placed fourth in the intermediate BMX division in a competition held at Sunny Springs Skate Park on August 26, 2006 [4]. Fotheringham advises others attempting to try these tricks to wear a helmet; he has suffered several injuries performing these tricks, including a broken elbow. He tries out new tricks by performing them first into a foam pit. Then he graduates to a ‘resi’, a harder plastic sheet over the cushions, before attempting the new trick on a regular skateboard ramp.[5] When asked about having to practice, Fotheringham responded "I don’t think of it as practice, I think of it as a fun way to live my life"[5]. Aaron has also performed his backflip on the nitro circus live tour over a 50 foot megaramp. Recently, he appeared in an episode of the reality series 'Secret Millionaire' and received a donation of US$20,000 from Century Software founder Gregory Haerr[6]. In 2009, Fotheringham also served as a wheelchair double for Kevin McHale's character, Artie Abrams, in Glee. ================== http://ypwr.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/14/aaron-fotheringham/ Young people who rock web site September 14, 2009 Aaron Fotheringham Posted: 07:11 AM ET Aaron Fotheringham, 17, competes in extreme sports with a wheelchair. Aaron Fotheringham has earned his “whining rights,” but he’s never touched them. He was born with spina bifida, unable to use his legs and adopted into a home with 5 other kids. None of that has ever kept him or his need for speed down. Since he was a baby, he was right on track with the rest of the kids. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He just did it in his own way - crawling on his tummy and pretending to fly like superman down the hallway on crutches. When he was eight years old, he went to a skate park in his wheelchair and saw the tricks the guys there were doing and said, “Hey, I can do that!” At first, he fell off a drop in a quarter pipe. But, he tried again until he started doing difficult tricks and entering free style competitions. “Wheelz,” as his friends call him, won the 2005 Vegas AmJam BMX finals, and soon after landed the first wheelchair back flip. He is the only known competitive “hard core sitter,” as he likes to say, so he competes against extreme bikers and skaters. His advice to anyone thinking about cashing in their “whining rights” - “Don't limit yourself. Just go out there – just live your life. Do something gnarly.” ================== http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/dec/18/foxs-secret-millionaire-gifts-local-wheelchair-ath/ THE LAS VEGAS SUN Fox’s ‘Secret Millionaire’ gifts local wheelchair athlete $20k With the top of his head mere inches above the lip of a jump, Aaron Fotheringham soars into the Guinness World Book of Records by performing a back flip in his wheelchair at Doc Romeo skate park on Oct. 20. By Steve Silver Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | 9:22 p.m. Going For The Record Sharedel.icio.usdiggFacebookE-mail this to a friend »URL: Download720p - QuicktimeiPod Sharedel.icio.usdiggFacebookE-mail this to a friend »URL:http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/2008/oct/31/1023/ Embed Aaron Fotheringham, 16, attempts to set a Guinness Book of World Record for a wheelchair backflip. Stephen R. Sylvanie / Special to the Home News Aaron Fotheringham crests the lip of a bowl at Doc Romeo skate park while performing various tricks before setting his own world record on Oct. 20. Related story ¦Wheelchair athlete’s back flip lands him in record book (10-31-2008) ¦BMXers rock and roll at AmJam competition (10-31-2008) Aaron Fotheringham flipped his way into the Guinness Book of World Records in October for completing the first ever back flip in a wheelchair. Thursday night, the 16-year-old Northwest Las Vegas resident flipped his way into a nice chunk of change. Fotherhingham unknowingly befriended a multi- millionaire Salt Lake City entrepreneur posing as a 'Regular Joe' on the season finale of Fox's reality television show, "Secret Millionaire." The premise of the show is that each week a millionaire goes undercover into poor sections of various cities in hopes of finding people worthy of a large monetary gift. The recipients are often people who have overcome great personal obstacles or others who devote themselves to various forms of community service. In this episode, the wealthy businessman, Greg Haerr, wrote Fotheringham a check for $20,000 at the Doc Romeo Skate Park to help the teenager start his own company to help other handicapped children compete in wheelchair athletics. Fotheringham wants to name his start-up the Hard Core Sitting Company. Haerr gave away another $120,000 to two other Las Vegas residents in Thursday's show.