"When I became independent at work I had a great deal of satisfaction, but my happiness was not complete until I started sharing the experience with others with similar needs.

 In the orderly chaos of a cluttered business office, Arthur Heyer moves a switch with his chin and his wheelchair back reclines.

 "I broke my neck when I was seventeen. I became paralyzed from my neck down. Had my life come to a stall?, I asked myself. Could I ever dream to do anything other than sitting in a wheelchair and watch others grow?

 "Now I do all these things. And I feel good about myself," Arthur says.

 "These things" are impressive. After his accident, Arthur went back to school, he tutored in English and Mathematics, he became a graduate mechanical engineer and then leader of an organization for the handicapped. Now he is the owner and operator of a company where devices to aid the handicapped are manufactured. He is fluent in both English and Spanish and reads some Russian.

"I saw the moonlight reflecting on the water and I dove in.

The weather was warm and I had been ill. I was still running a fever. I had once swum in this pool near my home. I saw the moon reflecting on the quiet surface and dove in.

"It was nine feet from the edge to the bottom of the pool, and on this night the moon reflected on just two inches of water.  My third and fifth vertebrae shattered, my spinal cord was smashed, and I became a quad.  This happened August 8 of 1963 in Guadalajara, Mexico.

"I spent one year in a Striker frame, a bed designed with two cots that "sandwiched" me keeping me immobile while I was turned face down or face up every two or three hours. Striker frames are narrow and have wheels, so I could be moved from room to room or out to the patio to get fresh air and lots of sun.  Books that were placed on a transparent platform over my face when I was lying on my back, and on a different platform when I was facing down kept me busy most of the time.

"I did not go to a rehabilitation hospital, not until 9 years later.  My family took care of me. I was the second of  9 brothers and sisters.

"After the first three months, I started moving my head.  My father saw this and made me a device for writing with my head. He attached a ball pen on a pair of eyeglass frames he arranged with magnifying glasses. The magnifying glasses allowed me to write at a short distance for better control, without straining my eyes.  I spent at least 2 hours writing and drawing every day.

"I made pen pals: one girl from Mexico City and one from Indonesia. I kept abreast with my Calculus and studied Russian, about 5 hours a day. I read Physics and I spent valuable time with visitors from the "Legion de Maria". It was a good year.

"At one time, the most important thing in my life was to be able to sit comfortably in a wheelchair. I was 6 feet and 6 inches tall and a calcified hip kept my left leg in the extended position. My father and a friend of ours developed a special wheelchair with a half-seat. The chair became my all day and every day companion for the nine years it lasted."

"When I had to go to the university, we did not have a vehicle where I could fit with my special wheelchair. My father and I did not want to wait until we saved or raised the money to buy a van. So he attached a "U" bracket at the rear of his bicycle and towed me the five miles to the University every day for two months until we bought a van.

Arthur did not go to a rehabilitation hospital. He received rehabilitation at home with the help of his parents, brothers, sisters, and friends the first year. Then he returned to school, reintegrating himself fully into a world of walking people, and involuntarily and unconsciously segregating himself from other handicapped people.

As a result, he developed an anti-handicapped feeling. "I did not want to be with other handicapped people. I would not even look at them. When I saw one on the street, I saw myself as a mirror reflection and I did not want to know that I looked like them."

The part of Heyer's mind that rejected even his own handicap may have been the part that drove him to study and strive. While society saw him as a handicapped individual, Arthur saw himself as a man, who was also a quadriplegic.

An operation for his calcified hip joint led him to Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California. In the Rehabilitation Center he learned that those broken or twisted bodies he had avoided were also real people.

The "growth" that he was later to realize everyone wants began there. He became so involved that when he returned to his home town Guadalajara, Mexico, he helped to start ALJAC, an organization of handicapped individuals, and was its president until he married 3 years later.

He and his bride went back to California, where Arthur obtained employment as a rehabilitation engineer at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, where he had been a patient 3 years before. He worked there 3 years and then changed jobs to become the president of his own company, Extensions For Independence.

The design of mechanisms to solve his own and others' functional needs became Arthur's career.  He has done it almost on a daily basis since he first sat in a wheelchair in October of 1964. Actually, he designed mechanisms since much before his accident. Arthur was a natural engineer.

Fortunately for him, his father first, and then other people too, were there to help him continue his natural career with practically no interruption. In the course of his life as a quadriplegic, Arthur has designed a number of mechanisms which have given him increased independence and comfort for life and work. Among other things, Arthur designed different types of mouthstick operated drafting machines, a motorized easel, telephone adapters, file trays that hold resource material open for easy reading, variable-height desks with large rotating tables for easy access, portable desks that attach to wheelchairs.  But first and best is the development of the H-A Modular Mouthstick, the production version of the mouthstick his father first designed for him.

The "Y"-shaped mouthpiece feature, which is basic since the elder Heyer first designed it for his son, is for the user to be able to talk while holding it with a firm and comfortable grip in his mouth.  Later, Arthur worked with Henry Abadie, a retired engineer from Long Beach, to create the Heyer-Abadie Modular Mouthstick. The new mouthstick was based on the same original design, but with added features. It had a mechanism for the user to interchange tips with different implements independently. It was designed telescoping, and best of all, it was designed so it could be produced with regular manufacturing methods, without requiring the craftsmanship needed by the original mouthstick design.

"This and other projects could have never materialized without the invaluable help of Henry, who spent thousands of hours at his home machine shop working on my designs.

 "I first met Henry in my work at Rancho. He was looking for something meaningful to do for the handicapped that would keep him busy in his retirement. His skill and persisting devotion for implementing and completing without delay mechanical concepts is responsible for the realization of my most intricate mechanical dreams.

 "Henry was amazing. I would tell him what was needed, describe how I thought it could be made, and he would return in a week or two with the item completed, or much advanced. (He passed away in 1993.)"

 One of the specific designs that carry the Heyer-Abadie name is a motorized easel for the nationally known artist, Joni Eareckson. Joni's beautiful paintings are produced by holding paintbrushes in her mouth. Her limited body movements required that someone be available to reposition the canvas as needed. With the motorized easel she can move the canvas attached to a drawing board up, down or to the sides at the touch of a button.

 Joni's motorized easel evolved from one of Arthur's "impossible" dreams Henry made a reality: a full-fledged drafting machine. This cross between an Etch-A-Sketch and a display board allowed Heyer to draw on-scale designs with his mouthstick.

"Arthur made it!  He conquered his disability! He did not just sit in a wheelchair to see others grow. He grew up himself, together with the rest of the people. He obtained the equipment he needed and acquired the skills to become gainfully employed.  But...what about the others?  Not too many have the great opportunities he had. Not everybody has someone around to create mechanisms.

"I started Extensions for Independence for a reason: I wanted to make available to others the equipment which was being responsible for a great feeling of fulfillment in my life, and I did not trust that anybody else would care to do it.

"Twenty one years later, I see back and say that I wish I had done differently.  Engaging in business with no previous experience or knowledge was like pedaling a Cadillac.  I worked hard and accomplished little. A good half of all my years in business have gone doing clerical work.  I learned independence for working in an office so well that I ended up wearing all the hats myself.