There are a variety of ways to get someone who has a disability into the trees. It depends on several factors; things like how strong is the person, what is the nature of the disability, are there any parts of the body that need special care taken?
If the person has good upper body strength, they may be able to do regular DRT. Or, they may benefit from using a couple of pulleys to increase their mechanical advantage when they are climbing. If the person is more physically limited, they would probably have the most success if a more extensive pulley system is used. Another thing to think about would be: "How is their balance?" Can the person sit up by themselves, or are they going to require some sort of back support to stay upright? (Sometimes a backrest is helpful even if the person can sit by themself; they can save energy and use the energy for climbing instead of for staying in a sitting position.)
TCUSA has done a lot of work with the rigging to help disabled people climb. A group of us in Michigan climb with disabled people all the time (we learned from TCUSA). We even climb with people who are on ventilators! Feel free to check out our website at
http://www.arborquest.org and you could email specific questions to [email]
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[/email].
Or, if you prefer, we can continue to talk about it on this board; other folks here might be interested in it, too.
Patrick
