Paralyzed Humboldt Bronco looks to make buildings more accessible

Spending the last five years using a wheelchair has given former Humboldt Broncos hockey player Ryan Straschnitzki a new path forward.

The 23-year-old from Airdrie, Alta., says so many times friends and family have had to carry his chair up stairs, wheel him down sketchy ramps and find other ways to get him around narrow doorways.

So he's studying how to make buildings more accessible for the disabled.

"Having lived this experience for five years now and going travelling all over the world and just realizing how inaccessible places are, especially Calgary, where I'm most of the time," he said. "I realized that maybe working toward making things a little more accessible ... these sorts of problems don't have to be encountered by anyone else."

Straschnitzki was paralyzed from the chest down on Apr. 6, 2018, when a semi-trailer ran a stop sign and barrelled into the path of the junior hockey team's bus in rural Saskatchewan.

Sixteen people died and 13 were seriously injured.

Since then, Straschnitzki has played sledge hockey and become a brand ambassador for Adidas. And he recently completed an accessibility certification course with the Rick Hansen Foundation about a national rating system that measures the physical access of buildings and other sites.

Hansen, who created the foundation, is best known as the Man In Motion for his wheelchair trip around the world in the 1980s to draw attention to people with disabilities and find a cure for paralysis.

He has been in regular contact with Straschnitzki since the Broncos crash.

"Rick and I had a couple of conversations and we realized Canada, in general, is a little behind the eight ball on accessibility," said Straschnitzki.

"So I took this course to learn a little bit more