State Leaves Quadriplegic Under Even Bigger Handicap

If there’s any credence to the theory that after things get so bad they start becoming funny, then Steve Smith ought to be on the verge of hysterical laughter.

But he ain’t laughing.

Instead he sits in a wheelchair in his El Toro home, replaying conversations of the last year with the state Department of Rehabilitation and wondering if he could have possibly misunderstood what they were telling him.

He keeps coming up with the same answer: He didn’t misunderstand.

The bad-luck history: About three years ago, a fall at his job left Smith with three herniated discs in his back. After being idled for 13 months, he had just begun a new job that would reduce stress on his back.

Six months into his new job, on May 16, 1989, he was riding his motorcycle and exiting the northbound San Diego Freeway at Bristol Street. Looking over one shoulder to check traffic flow, he didn’t see that traffic in front had stopped. He rear-ended a car, flew off the bike and landed on the roof of another car.

The accident left Smith, then 30, a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down and confined to a wheelchair. He has virtually no use of either hand. After a year of hospitalization and grueling rehabilitation therapy, Smith returned home last May.

While in the hospital, he says, he was introduced to a counselor in the Newport Beach office of the state Department of Rehabilitation. They talked frequently, Smith said, about him buying a van that could be modified inside for his use in either going to work or attending college classes as he pursued a new career.

He said the counselor assured him numerous times that the state could pay the modification costs and that the only thing needed was a routine “passenger modification” review that involved checking out the van to see what was needed.

On the first Friday in March of this year, Smith said, he told the counselor that he and his wife, Cathy, were going van-shopping, although they didn’t plan to buy. But the next day, he said, they spent all day at a dealership and finally bought a $21,000, full-size van, using the family Hyundai as a trade-in.

Two days later, Smith said, he told the counselor of the purchase. He said she was enthusiastic and referred again to completing the passenger modification review.

The following Friday, Smith said, the counselor for the first time told him the state might not be able to pay for the modifications, which Smith had priced through bids at around $4,800.

Smith said the counselor told him that rehab officials had met the previous Friday and that, in reviewing the budget, discovered that funds were extremely limited. She also told him--for the first time, Smith insists--that he might not even be eligible for reimbursement on van modifications.

Smith said he complained that she should have told him a few days earlier, when he first told her of the van purchase. Had she done so, Smith says he told her, he might have been able to return the van and get his car back.

Smith says the counselor told him that her supervisors had advised the staff not to tell clients of the budgetary problems.

That, essentially, is where the matter now lies. Smith (who, incidentally, did not initiate the contact with The Times about his problem) insists that the counselor never waved any cautionary flags until after he bought the van.

When I telephoned the counselor to check Smith’s recounting of conversations with her, she declined to comment. Citing confidentiality laws, she said she can’t even confirm that Smith has been a client of hers. She referred me to Milt Pentecost, the department’s district administrator in Anaheim. He said he couldn’t discuss any client’s case without written authorization from the client, but agreed to discuss state rehab services in general.

In general, a series of tests is needed to determine whether the state will provide reimbursement to a disabled person, Pentecost said. “We can only provide those services that are vocationally oriented,” Pentecost said. “I’m under the general impression that when the department gets involved in the provision of transportation, such as vans and van modifications, a person has to be actually going to a job.”

Given that, I asked Pentecost, wouldn’t someone in the department have cautioned Smith about buying a van if he weren’t yet entitled to state reimbursement? Without referring specifically to Smith, Pentecost said, “He’s ahead of the process. To take an action ahead of the process and independent of the department, under the assumption of what the department can and can’t do, is a bit premature. It puts us in a position of violating regulations.”

Smith realizes it’s his word against the counselor’s.

My intention isn’t to trash the rehab department. I can’t know for sure what the counselor did or didn’t tell the Smiths over the many months.

For what it’s worth, I believe Smith all the way. I find it hard to believe that he and his wife, who works for a computer printer manufacturer, would have been so confused about such a critical issue to them. I don’t think you spend $21,000 for a van that’s of no use to you without modifications.

Still, I tried to play defense attorney for the state. Why should a neutral party believe your version? I asked Smith.

“My wife could get me transferred in and out of the car we had, because we had a collapsible manual chair, which she could put in the back of the car,” he said. “It would have been irresponsible and downright stupid of me to get rid of the one vehicle I could have transportation in and go out and buy a $21,000 van and not be able get around in it.”

“When I had the car,” Smith said, “I had the freedom to go anywhere I wanted. Now I don’t. I can’t go to school. Even if I could find a job, I can’t get to one. I can’t even go down to the mall without calling Dial-a-Ride, which quits at 4 o’clock. Why would I give up my independence to go places and interact socially, just for maybe thinking I could pressure the state into doing it (paying for the van modification)?”

I’d love to hear the counselor’s response to that.

One footnote: On that March 2 day they bought the van, Smith says, it took four men from the dealership to lift him and his special 300-pound electric wheelchair into the van. Because his wife can’t get him in or out of it, the salesmen rode home with them and then lifted Smith out.

“I haven’t been back in it since,” Smith said.