Wheelchair basketball player Camilo van Trijp and hand biker Mischa Hielkema are both paralyzed after an accident. Thanks to recovery center Rijndam, they could develop themselves to the top athletes they are today and they will be competing at the European Para Championships, from August 8 till 20.
Judokas and boccia players. Wheelchair basketball players and hand bikers. They compete against each other in Rotterdam, the Netherlands for the titles at the European Championships in parasport, a tournament that bundles ten separate European Championships and will last until August 20. The top athletes who participate have arrived there after a long, difficult route through recovery centers and through their own strength and perseverance. Such as in the renowned Rijndam in Rotterdam, a center specialized in medical rehabilitation, where the hard work for the start of a new life is being done. In the case of Van Trijp and Hielkema that work grew into a top sports career.
Van Trijp (32) is a player of the Dutch wheelchair basketball team and played in the German league with the Köln 99ers last season. Next year he will take a new step: he will sign with an Italian club, where he will play together with his girlfriend Jitske Visser (also international). It’s a completely different life than he envisioned as a recreational field hockey player and consultant at a software company. A life that begins after October 1, 2017. On that day, Van Trijp falls asleep behind the wheel in his car on the highway. He causes a one-sided accident and is paralyzed from below the waist.
The life he knew before that accident is immediately over. Van Trijp is being operated, knows little or nothing about that period and quickly comes to the hard conclusion: paraplegia level T9, no feeling and function below the navel. “A big blow, very hard, but it was evident. I knew immediately that I was never going to be able to walk again.” After two weeks in the hospital, Van Trijp quickly ends up in Rijndam. He immediately gets the idea that there a lot of possibilities, even though he is now in a wheelchair. “Oh, you have a low spinal cord injury, that will be fine,” they said there. I still thought; man, what are you talking about, my legs don’t work anymore, but now I understand what they meant back then. Because I still have my hand and arm function, quite a lot of things are possible. Also in terms of independence.”
Life falls apart
At Rijndam, sport is an important part of the recovery process at an early stage. “We know that people who are fitter, who are more trained, experience a higher quality of life,” says physiotherapist Rogier Broeksteeg, who has been working at the center for 27 years. “Most of them suddenly become paralyzed. Their whole life falls apart, which has such an impact on your work, on your role in the family, that we first try to get them ready to go home with a kind of basic course. That means learning to get out of bed, to wash, to cook.”
At the rehabilitation center, many specialists are ready to shape the new life phase of the patient. Such as doctors, orthopaedists, psychologists, physiotherapists, movement therapists. A plan is made together with the patient, the first phase of which happens in the center, which itself has extensive facilities. A swimming pool where the floor can drop down, so that someone with a wheelchair and can sink in the water, which is specially set to a warm and comfortable 32 degrees Celsius. A walking lab, where the first steps are sometimes literally taken again. A workshop of the orthopedic technique department where custom-made protheses are manufactured.
Motocross accident
Mischa Hielkema, now a hand biker, was twenty years old when his life fell apart. The young, talented motocross racer took part in an indoor competition in Goes, Zeeland, 27 years ago now. In a hall, the competitors rode on a thin layer of sand on a harder surface than they usually ride on in outside races. Hielkema mad a slight mistake at a double jump and then landed with his back on another sand bump: broken back, paraplegia from the chest.
Hielkema was a passionate and ambitious racer before his accident, after the accident he tried to pick up sports again as soon as possible. “I didn’t take the first step in my new phase of life in my work or study, but in sport. Not immediately at top level of course, it was very relaxed at first. Also to make social contact with able-bodied athletes, so they can see what is happening to me. It may sound crazy, but it’s really the first moment I returned to society. It gives a regained joy of life again.”
It’s a confirmation of the philosophy and character of Rijndam. A healthy and fit lifestyle is an important pillar in the entire rehabilitation process. Pediatric rehabilitation doctor Sandra Titulaer guides children after their accident and with a congenital abnormality. “Sports and exercise is a very normal, natural way to live your life,” she says. “I think that a return to society not only consists of going to the store or going to work independently, but also that you can exercise. It is perhaps even more important for someone in a wheelchair, because it is less evident for them to go from a to b once in a while. By learning how to use and move a wheelchair at an early age, we train them physically and mentally to do so.”
Power of sports
Both Van Trijp and Hielkema were already sporty in their ‘old’ lives and did not really need to be convinced of the importance and power of sport. Still, the mental part of the return should not be underestimated. Physically your body has suffered a huge blow, mentally the damage can also have major consequences. “What really happens inside someone’s mind is so different and individual,” says Titulaer, who is also involved in the international sports of para climbing and -skiing as a so-called classifier. “Some want to know right away how rehabilitation is being handled, others cannot accept that they will never be able to hold their cutlery with both hands again. I used to be able to do that, right?, they think.”
It is a process Van Trijp recognizes very well. A trip to the supermarket suddenly requires planning. “In the beginning your frame of reference is how you use to handle things: cycling to the supermarket and back within half an hour: you don’t think about that. Now I go with the wheelchair and it takes me an hour. And how do I take all those groceries with me? And do I still have energy to do something else afterwards? Those are little things that are difficult at first. You have to accept that everything is different.”
Exercise and sports in the rehabilitation center does not mean that there is a top athlete in everyone. That is not the goal, either for the patient or for Rijndam, but because there is close contact with an increasingly better working network of sports associations, clubs and organizations such as SportMEE and Uniek Sporten, it is easier to connect with top-level sport. In the center’s sports hall, exercise specialists see in various sessions which patients have aptitudes and interests for certain sports and they can help them on their way to a possible sports club in their area.
In addition, physiotherapist Broeksteeg is one of the organizers of a unique event for nine years now, where both Van Trijp and Hielkema have pushed their limits physically and mentally: the handbike battle in Austria. A climb of 20 kilometers to the Kaunertaler glacier in Tirol with 867 meters of height difference. People who have never done this before are faced with a seemingly inhuman task: conquering that climb in the hand bike, that means purely on arm strength. It is a life changing experience for many. “Once they have done that, they get the feeling that almost nothing is impossible,” says Broeksteeg. “Participants say they got their lives back on track by doing that battle. It is wonderful and grateful to be able to experience up close what it means for patients and for their partners and family.”
Moment of happiness
The 47-year-old Hielkema has now become Dutch champion several times and participated in the world championship in Glasgow this week, before he arrives at the European Championship in Rotterdam. “Some things in life you lose because the accident, but I got hand biking in return. I get a lot of satisfaction from that. I recently went up the Stelvio (a mythical mountain in the Alps, often climbed in the Tour of Italy, ed.). My girlfriend rode along with the bike. It gave such an incredible rush when we came up on top of that climb together, that is really a moment of happiness.”
The hand bike has been collecting dust in the room of basketball player Van Trijp for some time now, but for him it was also the instrument that brought him into contact with top-level sport. “To be out of breath again for the first time, in that hand bike, wonderful!”, he remembers. “That is a milestone. I also wanted to do a team sport, because social contact is important to me. That is also very nice about Rijndam, they encourage that.” He had a taste of wheelchair hockey, but his head made the comparison with what it was like to be an able-bodied field hockey player. “It was no longer possible in the way I was used to playing field hockey, it was very hard for me to experience. Then I fell in love with basketball. Incredible difficult in the beginning, because you have to get the wheelchair under control. For example: Don’t let go of your hoops on your wheels with both hands to wait for the ball, because then you just keep rolling. But it really has become a passion.”
Complete life
Their accident paradoxically gave them a new, beautiful life. A life they had never imagined, but for which they are grateful. “My life before the accident was not necessarily better than after,” Van Trijp even says. “I have been given a second chance. Fortunately, my employer TOPdesk has been very cooperative in everything and I was able to keep my job as a consultant, but I am now also a top athlete and I get paid to play basketball in Italy.”
Hielkema also regularly talks about his new phase of life when he talks about his recovery. “It really feels that way. I got my life back on track and I really couldn’t have done that without Rijndam. I have a girlfriend, I’ve got two beautiful daughters, I have a job, handbiking takes me everywhere. The circle is complete at this European Championship, because it started in Rijndam and with the Rotterdam on Wheels event that I participated in then and now I’m back in that city, at this wonderful event. I really have a very complete life.”