Terms & Conditions Extreme Abilities PTY Ltd. Community Works NPC
When people ask me “how do you do it?” I usually want to say something smart and deeply philosophical, but the short and the long of it is the age old saying - life is short.
And It’s true. The only sad thing is that most people only realises this when it’s already too late.
That’s why I do what I do.
I live.
“Fear became my strength and later that fear turned into curiosity, the more I succeeded in breaking my boundaries, the more boundaries I wanted to break…”
the world is unintentionally cruel towards disabled people.
The world was not designed to cater for disabled people. Living life in a wheelchair you learn that no matter where you go, there will always be some sort of obstacle that you haven’t faced in the past. Learning to adapt to different situations is vital for any person in a wheelchair. Over the years I’ve learned to do things in my chair that I never dreamed of doing before I landed in one. I just looked at other disabled people and knew that lifestyle was not for me.
I started to challenge everything that prevented my wheelchair from doing what I wanted it to do. Fear became my strength and later that fear turned into curiosity, the more I succeeded in breaking my boundaries, the more boundaries I wanted to break and in that process I forgot that I was disabled because I started doing things that normal people fear to do. I wanted to share my knowledge of overcoming fears and mastering a wheelchair. I wanted to share that freedom of breaking boundaries with other disabled people.
I decided to lead my life as an example of what life in a wheelchair can be. After two years of teaching myself how to surf again, I finished a course in surfing instructing. I studied to be a tour guide and I started doing motivational speeches. With these skills combined I want to give people living in wheelchairs the experience of a life time. I want to give them new reason to live. I want to give them that experience of staring into the face of a great white shark, jumping off the edge of a 100m drop, of flying over mountains and braving the swells of the ocean. I want to show people what it is like to find strength in fear. With Extreme Abilities Adaptive Tours, I aim to achieve that goal.
Dries Millard
Before my disability my life was set in a course with full sporting bursaries and promises and aspirations of a professional rugby player and athlete. Since my accident, I knew that I would have to find another way to fulfill myself. In the first year after my accident I opened myself up to many disability orientated programs and activities. Everywhere I went, weather it was locally or abroad, I learned that there is always a gap in the social lives between the disabled and able communities. Something slowly changed the way I viewed people and places where people socialized. I realized that
Owner: Dries Millard
T8 complete paraplegic
2008
