Group aims to get mobility-challenged Minnesotans outdoors

Darren Dorn was 18 years old and driving his pickup to his home just north of Minneapolis when he swerved to avoid hitting a deer.

That was the end of the first part of his life, and the beginning of the second.

Now 40 years old, Dorn, who works in sales for a lumber company, was at Game Fair last weekend in Ramsey, and will be there this weekend as well, Aug. 16-18.

In a wheelchair since the crash, Dorn is among a half-dozen or so leaders of the relatively new group Disabled Outdoorsmen Minnesota who are staffing a Game Fair booth to raise awareness about Minnesotans who love to be outdoors but who have mobility challenges.

“After my accident, I thought, ‘OK, this happened to me, but I want to do everything I used to do, especially hunting and fishing. I just have to figure out how to do it on four wheels,’” he said.

Nate Sjolin, 45, is another Disabled Outdoorsmen member who has been at Game Fair. Like Dorn, Sjolin, of Hanover, Minn., was in a crash in 2002.

“I woke up in the hospital to find out I was paralyzed from the waist down,” Sjolin said. “I was a big hunter and fisherman before my accident, and I knew I would continue to hunt and fish. I just had to figure out a way to do it.”

Technology has helped.

Sjolin, who works as a restaurant manager, drives his pickup using hand controls to accelerate and brake. Also, with the push of a button, his truck topper rises to one side, revealing a mechanical arm — a type of crane — that hoists his wheelchair into the truck bed.

Specialized equipment is nice, and useful. But it doesn’t soothe the ache mobility-challenged people feel when recalling the lives they lived before they crashed a pickup — or fell off a roof, or missed a step on a ladder.

People born with disabilities also dream of doing things able-bodied people do. The prospect of being outdoors, hunting or fishing, can be especially appealing. “We have a member who was born with mobility challenges and who had always wanted to hunt deer, but he had never had the opportunity,” Sjolin said. “So we set up a ground blind for him and a camera that transmits the crosshairs of his rifle scope to a laptop screen so he can see when to shoot. His rifle trigger is set up like a bicycle brake, which he can squeeze to take a shot.”

Sara Fike has been in a relationship with Dorn for three years. She’s among the able-bodied board members and volunteers who sometimes carry blinds to a field or help set up decoys for Disabled Outdoorsmen — anything to pitch in.

She loves it.

“This is all brand new to me,’’ she said. “Disabled Outdoorsmen members and the people they take hunting and fishing inspire me. They have drive and they’re very independent, especially considering the deal they’ve been given. When we get outdoors, everyone gets really pumped up. It’s fun to be part of.”

In addition to sponsoring hunting trips near the Twin Cities metro area and launch trips to Mille Lacs, where members and their families can fish together, Disabled Outdoorsmen also sends some lucky sportsmen and women on trips of a lifetime.

“Last year, we sent a woman on a fishing trip to South Carolina and another traveled to Texas to hunt,” Dorn said. “This fall, we have a couple of waterfowl hunts planned in North Dakota.”

Expectations on these outings can differ from those of able-bodied hunters and anglers. The latter sometimes measure success by the number of fish caught or ducks bagged. “Our main goal instead is to have fun,” Dorn said. “A number of times, we’ve gone fishing when we haven’t caught anything. We’ve also gone hunting and not gotten anything. That’s OK. Being outdoors and together is our main goal.”

Though Dorn and Sjolin have honored the promises they made to themselves to continue hunting and fishing after their accidents, perhaps more important to them now is getting other people with mobility challenges into the field.

“For me, the most satisfying part is helping people push through their perceived limitations to do more than they thought possible,” Sjolin said. “Helping people accomplish their dreams really hits me in the heart.”

At Game Fair, in hopes of raising money to get more mobility-challenged people outdoors, Disabled Outdoorsmen members are raffling guns, fishing rods and other outdoor gear. Tickets are $20, and a drawing will be held Sunday.

If you’re at Game Fair this weekend, stop by the Disabled Outdoorsmen booth. You might even get to meet Maxus and Lucy, Dorn’s Labradors. “It’s not often you meet a service dog, a therapy dog and a hunting dog all in one,” Dorn said. “But I trained Maxus myself, and he’s all of those.

“If I fall to the ground, he’ll help me get back up. And he keeps me very stable mentally.”