Cape Town - An adaptive paragliding experience, was the most freeing moment for 28-year-old South African para-athlete Brandon Beack, since an accident 12 years ago left him seriously injured and now using a wheelchair.
Beack took flight from Signal Hill with the use of a special chair for adaptive paragliding, with Square1Paragliding founder, head of training and chief flight instructor, Matthew van Zyl.
At age 16, Beack was training for the Junior Olympics when the incident occurred.
“I broke my neck in 2012 doing gymnastics. During a normal training session, I fell off the parallel bars. I was left a quadriplegic. I didn’t have function in my hands or arms at the time but from years of rehabilitation, I was able to actually gain that back and recover further than anyone else ever expected. So it’s been 12 years of quite a tough but incredible journey, of lots of rehabilitation, lots of hard work, Beack said.
“I always said that if I gain the ability to walk again tomorrow, the first thing I would do is climb a tree, because I can’t do that. I would go off the pathway, I would go over the barriers, I would walk on the mountain or on a hiking trail off the route, because at the moment I’m stuck to the route, and that’s it, and what this paragliding did was take me entirely off the route.
“It took me entirely off the path, it took me to places I never thought I would ever see. I was flying over bushes and over fields and over mountains and over buildings,” Beack said.
Beack co-founded a non-profit organisation Walking with Brandon Foundation in 2015, to empower people with disabilities such as spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and strokes, by improving access to outpatient rehabilitation, skills development and community building activities.
Beack is also an ambassador for the Wings for Life Foundation, powered by Red Bull, raising funds for spinal cord injury research with the ultimate goal of finding a cure.
Beack met Van Zyl during the Wings for Life Foundation’s annual World Run event in May this year.
“It’s kind of poetic that we met there. I’m an ambassador for them and this (experience) literally gives me wings.”
Van Zyl began the sister company to Square1Paragliding, Adaptive Paragliding, opening up the world of flight for people with disabilities in a safe manner by importing a specially constructed “flying wheelchair”, from France.
“I’ve been running my company since 2016 and for the last two years, I decided to bring in a wheelchair because there isn’t anything available in this country like that. The equipment is available around the world but unfortunately not in South Africa yet, and I decided that this must stop, we must bring in the right equipment.
“With the rest of the paragliders, they have an open harness and a person with a disability will be able to come and fly but they will put them in a normal open harness and that is very unsafe for the actual passenger.
“So now we’ve got a chair that’s specifically designed for paragliding. It’s to make them feel safe and secure within the chair. It’s easy to transfer from their own chair into our fly chair and then the safety that comes with it puts them at ease before we even start to take off.”
Van Zyl is currently in the process of setting up a non-profit organisation which would be able to provide free flights for people with disabilities, through corporate sponsorship.
When Van Zyl arrived in South Africa with the special chair, there was scepticism due to its novelty in South Africa, which led him to write an extensive risk assessment, specifically for the chair and flying conditions in South Africa.
Adaptive Paragliding has also been signed off by the South African Civil Aviation Authority and the South African Hang gliding and Paragliding Association.
“This is the first time something like this is happening in South Africa. We’ve got a lot of seen and unseen disabilities in this country and I stand for inclusion, it’s all about inclusion. How many people can be included in this fantastic sport. It’s complete freedom. So I don’t see why anybody has to be excluded from experiencing this once in a lifetime flight.”
In total, around 20 clients with disabilities have since been able to experience the joy that comes with free flight.
Just recently, van Zyl had his first adaptive paragliding student Ajmal Samuel, a Hong Kong-based businessman and former national-level rowing athlete of Pakistani origin.
Through van Zyl’s instruction, Samuel was qualified as the first person with a disability to achieve the full qualification as a solo paragliding pilot in Asia and Africa.
“In Europe there’s about 250 registered disabled pilots that fly by themselves, not tandem like we are doing here today. So we just qualified South Africa’s first disabled pilot and we would like to see that we can compete with places like Europe.”