Building independence with the New Mexico Ramp Project

Genny Prando had never received an SOS notification on her phone until Sept. 14. The notification was coming from the phone of Prando’s niece, Casey Thompson. It was alerting her that her niece was in trouble.

Seeing the location of the SOS was only minutes away from her work, Prando followed the directions and arrived at the scene of a two-car crash.

Inside one of the cars was Thompson. “Her car was all smashed up, and the fire people were trying to cut her out of the car,” Prando said. She sustained numerous fractures, including to both her ankles, her right wrist and several ribs.

“What wasn’t broken was really bruised,” Thompson said.

For roughly the next two months, Thompson was unable to walk. When she was finally able to get back on her feet, ”I can now kind of feel everything I step on, from a slight incline or decline,” she said. “Like the stripes they put in parking lots — I can feel all of that.”

One of the biggest struggles for Thompson to navigate post-crash was right outside the front door at her aunt’s house, where Thompson lives. With an elevated front lawn, there was a set of stairs she needed to walk up in order to get up or down from the front door.

Thompson relied on the help of her aunt and uncle in order to get up and down the stairs safely but knew that would not be long-term solution. She needed to find a safer way to get in and out of the house.

She found her answer during a conversation with a lawyer who “recommended that I get in contact with the (New Mexico Ramp Project),” she said. After filling out an application, Thompson was approved to have a ramp built at her aunt’s home, free of charge.

Since its founding in 2019, the New Mexico Ramp Project has been building and providing free ramps for older adults and people with mobility issues across the state . The organization’s vision is to ensure that no New Mexicans lack access to their home because they lack the money to build a ramp themselves.

“When you look at the families we help, their houses are almost like a prison to someone in a wheelchair,” said Greg Hallstrom, executive director of the New Mexico Ramp Project. “That leads to a lot of issues. One is isolation and the second is depression, so (the ramps) really help the individuals and get them out of their houses.”

The New Mexico Ramp Project has 32 ramp building teams spread across the state and has built 300 ramps since 2019. The nonprofit also operates fabrication shops in Albuquerque, Farmington, Española, Belen, Las Cruces and Hobbs.

At the fabrication shops, volunteers design and build frames that will be used to construct the ramps. The frames go from the fabrication shops and into the hands of the build teams, who are all volunteers from across the state. The teams set up site surveys, speak with the ramp recipient and coordinate dates for the builds.

Hallstrom said the New Mexico Ramp Project purchases its building materials with help from public and corporate donations.

The build team that constructed Thompson’s ramp on Saturday were members of New Mexico Team Rubicon, a veteran-led humanitarian organization. The group arrived in the chilly morning hours and began breaking down how the ramp was going to be built.

This ramp was constructed with an unusual 90-degree turn at Thompson’s request.

“Normally, we would just come down and make a 180-degree turn and go back back the same way we came in, but she didn’t want to take up the parking spot,” team build leader Tim Westemeier said.

After walking his team through the build, the sound of power saws began to fill the air as the team of about 12 volunteers set to work . The ramp took roughly six hours to build, but the impact it will have on Thompson will be felt for many years to come.

“This is really been kind of a blessing. I was so glad they were able to come and do this,” Thompson said.

Photos: From fabrication to installation with the New Mexico Ramp Project