Equipped For Life Paralyzed In A Crash, Karl Hugill Is Getting Along Fine Now And Is In Business Making Customized Vans To Help Other Wheelchair Users Enjoy Life, Too

Trying to remember the accident is like looking for something dropped into a muddy pond. Karl Hugill can’t recall much that happened, except what he was told.

It was May 19, 1984. Hugill had just gotten married the day before. He and his new wife were returning from the Valley to Fort Lewis, where he was stationed in the Army.

Then wet roads and a car wreck changed his life forever.

After swerving to avoid an accident while passing, his AMC Hornet spun out on a western Washington highway and crashed into a guardrail post. Hugill’s head snapped back over the headrest, breaking his neck.

The 1975 Central Valley High School graduate was left paralyzed. His wife, who suffered only minor injuries, left him five months later.

For Hugill, now 39, things seemed empty, impossible. But through a combination of his own old-fashioned grit and the love of a second wife, things are now looking up.

Hugill is happy and in love. He has regained a large measure of his independence and can drive again. And he’s a partner in new Valley business that helps others do the same - Unique Conversions.

“My view on life now is, I’m two feet shorter - that’s it,” Hugill says.

Unique Conversions, 13214 E. Indiana, is run by by Hugill, his wife Judy Hugill and Rick Mettler, a veteran auto customizer. Rick Mettler. They install wheelchair lifts, automatic doors, steering conversion kits and anything else needed to make driving or getting around at home easier for people with disabilities.

Hugill says he appreciates first-hand what that means.

“(A spinal injury) is probably one of the most devastating things a person could go through,” he says. “The ability to get into your own vehicle and take off whenever you want is an unbelievable sense of satisfaction. It was probably one of the best morale boosters I got.”

But sometimes he felt equipment installers who weren’t disabled themselves talked down to him. When he needed something adjusted, he felt he was inconveniencing them.

It turns out he wasn’t alone. “I get that all the time,” says Joe Whaley, who is wheelchair-bound due to multiple sclerosis. “Just because my butt sits above them wheels does not mean my brain does not work.”

But like many, Whaley needed his own vehicle. “I have a family and three children. I’m like Mr. Mom now, and going without a lift-equipped vehicle is no good.”

Whaley had Unique do some conversion work on his van. He says the fact Hugill knows what it’s like to need everything adjusted just right made a huge difference.

That’s why the Hugills decided to start the business.

It was Judy who prodded, pleaded and motivated her husband to start a business for which he had a special understanding.

When she remembers times Karl had problems with installers or wheelchair repair people, she still gets a little angry. “I get irate. That’s how I get.”

The two complement each other well. Judy provides a sassy, go-get-‘em attitude. Karl, pale blue eyes and slightly graying mustache, is a stay-focused pragmatist.

Once, before they were married five years ago, Judy convinced Karl to go for a jet boat ride in Grants Pass, Ore. “She talked me into it,” Karl remembers. “It was a time. I had bugs in my teeth and everything.”

“You just have to be persistent enough,” Judy says, voice full of tough conviction. “We’re trying to make people understand you can do it.”

The two met at Spokane’s Veterans Administration Medical Center, where Judy worked in the cafeteria. They talked a few times and eventually started dating.

The first few years after his accident, Karl says, “I had no confidence, no self-assurance, no self-esteem at all.

“After I met (Judy) was when I really started to come out of it. She didn’t see a person in a wheelchair, she saw me.”

They still seem like newlyweds.

“He takes pride in himself. He’s demanding, but he’s very kind and gentle… and I just love him,” she says.

“She’s my aide, my attendant, my nurse, my lover and my wife - all rolled up in one,” he says.

The marriage partnership seemed perfect. But they needed an additional partner of a different kind to operate their business.

Rick Mettler had done vehicle customization for 17 years and mobility conversions for eight years. That’s how he met Karl. When Mettler heard that the couple wanted to start a people-oriented operation, he wanted to join them.

Although Karl worked as a welder and metal fabricator before joining the Army, his accident left him with only partial use of his upper body. With Mettler on board, the business now had its hands-on guy. “He’s the brawn,” Karl says.

Unique Conversions opened in February, and is already breaking even, Judy says.

Karl does the financial planning and marketing. Judy does the bookkeeping. Mettler does the installing.

All three do brainstorming. If someone needs a special step, lever, handle or rack, they’ll track it down or even manufacture it themselves.

Some conversions are simple. Wheelchair users with good use of their upper bodies can opt for a $600 hand control system. That allows them to brake and accelerate without using feet.

Others who also need help getting into their vehicles may need magnetic door locks, automatic van sliding doors and wheelchair lifts. Those conversions start at $8,000 to $10,000 and costs can reach $20,000. That’s how much Karl’s own van conversion is worth.

“That’s my baby,” he says, his face lighting up.

Karl’s ‘91 Ford van, converted by Mettler while he worked for another company, is hard to miss. It’s light silvery blue, has a spoiler on top and ground effects on the bottom. The side reads “S.S. Enterprise.” A space mural decorates the sides, and a spaceship painting decorates the tire cover in back. Karl says he’s a bit of a Trekkie.

The inside features a lowered floor and a vacant space where the driver’s seat would be. Karl’s wheelchair locks into place there. In addition to hand controls, the steering wheel has a U-shaped hand cradle to compensate for Karl’s limited upper body movement.

For the disabled who can’t afford vehicle conversions, Karl says there are organizations that help defray such costs.

Joe Whaley says that while the business has helped customers like himself, it also has helped Karl Hugill.

“Look what’s done for him, it’s made it so he can now work,” Whaley says. “The disabled community around here is like a big family, and Karl is part of our family.”

Operating the business has helped restore his self-esteem, Karl says. “It brought back some of my arrogant, egotistical… . ” he starts, before being drowned out by Judy and Mettler’s laughter.

“I’ve been enjoying life again for the past seven years,” Karl says. “I’ve been really enjoying life.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)