Local Marine Corps Veteran Served by Easterseals Receives Gift of LifeChanging Power Chair from Bird Growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Corporal Nicolas “Nick” Voss, 25, who lives in the South Park area of San Diego, felt that joining the military was his destiny. ‘When I was young, I always dressed up as a Soldier or a Marine for Halloween, so I think I always had it in me,” recalls Nick. “Also, my parents had dealings with the military. My dad helped design the first nuclear submarine for the Navy and my mom worked as an intern for the Air Force while she was in college. When I was in high school, I was looking at colleges and didn’t feel as if it was going to fulfill what I wanted to be … what I needed to be. In my mind, the Marine Corps is the best of the best. I wanted to join to make something of myself and be a part of something much bigger than myself.” After signing up with the Marine Corps in 2016 and attending boot camp at MCRD San Diego, Nick was deployed, during which time he suffered a spinal injury in a helicopter accident, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. “I knew immediately what had happened,” he recalls about the accident. “It was definitely a tough time. I was looking forward to spending more time in the Marine Corps. I didn’t feel I was done with my service or done doing what I joined to do. And I didn’t know where I was going.”
Since launching in 2014, the Easterseals program has served nearly 2,350 veterans and families with employment support and referrals, placing more than 1,200 with civilian positions and leading 196 to pursue academic degrees. The service is free to veterans. But as Nick was getting his life back on track, his mobility remained limited in a borrowed, manual wheelchair—despite his obvious skills in “popping a wheelie.” That’s when Easterseals stepped in and teamed up with Bird, a leader in environmentally friendly electric transportation, to make the lifechanging gift of a Bird-powered WHILL/Scootaround Ci2 power chair. “I’m young and I have a need for speed,” laughed Nick, quoting his favorite movie, Top Gun, after he was presented with the electric scooter March 10 near the Bob Hope memorial in the park in front of the U.S.S. Midway. “The scooter does add different aspects to mobility than a manual wheelchair,” he added a few weeks after receiving the vehicle. “It alleviates strain on my body; has easy, one-handed control; amazing turnaround; and some nice, off-road capabilities. It enables me to go places I couldn’t go with a manual wheelchair.
Following were 16 months in rehabilitation at San Diego’s Wounded Warrior Battalion Naval Hospital, the most trying time of his life. “It wasn’t easy,” says Nick, “but it enabled me to manage the mobility I have and definitely prepared me for getting out and living life as I am now, outside of the structured support of the military.” Nick then found a home at the Warrior Foundation Freedom Station, a transitional housing residence in the San Diego region where veterans can heal, pursue personal growth and prepare for the new opportunities that await in civilian life. He also began working with Easterseals Southern California’s Bob Hope Veterans Support Program, which provides one-on-one employment services, as well as referrals to other resources, to meet the unique needs of military personnel and veterans transitioning out of the military into other work.
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WWW.SanDiegoVeteransMagazine.com / APRIL 2022
Pictured with Corporal Nicolas “Nick” Voss (L-R) are Blanca Laborde, Director of Government Partnerships, Bird, and Cynthia Marinaccio, Transition and Employment Specialist, Easterseals Southern California’s Bob Hope Veterans Support Program.
