Moving forward through the rubble

Travis Taylor is no stranger to adversity. Now, he helps his Fort Myers community overcome it in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

By Lucille Lannigan

Three weeks after Hurricane Ian, Travis Taylor drives until the houses get smaller, the streets narrower and the debris piles taller.

The 32-year-old passes the remaining wreckage of branches and garbage. Looming heaps crowd the sidewalk. Most Fort Myers streets were cleared after the storm, but these ones — inhabited mainly by the poorest residents — were not.

He navigates neighborhoods until a small gray strip of duplexes comes into sight. He’s traveled across the city to deliver a wheelchair to Alexander Kukugra. The 65-year-old’s original chair fell victim to Ian’s unforgiving storm surge.

Between Fort Myers and Fort Myers Beach, thousands of structures were left damaged or destroyed, leaving areas unrecognizable. The remains of beach cottages, mom-and-pop shops and local landmarks decay in dumpsters. In the months after its landing, Ian was named Florida’s deadliest hurricane since 1935, with a death toll of 144.

Entire lives and memories lay in the storm’s ruins — but for Kukugra and others with disabilities who lost crucial medical equipment, mobility was washed away.

Losing a wheelchair or a vital medication is dangerous. It’s dehumanizing. And Taylor understands this better than most. Twelve years ago, he suffered a spinal cord injury that made him unable to walk. It also rendered many of the muscles in his arms and hands unusable.

He travels to Kukugra’s home in his Honda Odyssey outfitted with a wheelchair ramp, a handle used to steer and a lever used to brake and accelerate. In place of the driver’s seat is an open space where he locks his wheelchair into place.

Taylor drives in slight jolts, his chair rocking back and forth, a feeling he’s grown used to. He listens to music — sometimes top rap and pop hits, sometimes classic rock because it reminds him of his dad. He gazes at the road with calm confidence as he leans forward over the steering wheel. Driving is freedom. It’s independence. It’s strength — even if it’s done in a minivan, which Taylor says he’s much too young for.

This independence means everything when a disability takes its toll on a person’s confidence.

Taylor knows that feeling well. He has sat in his car, minutes ticking away slowly while he waits for the departure of the car parked too close to the handicapped spot next to him. He can’t release his wheelchair ramp otherwise. He’s had to call his mom in the middle of the night as he lay, awoken by the fire alarms he cannot turn off himself. He’s dealt with stares and uncomfortable interactions. But he wakes up every day and challenges himself to prove that he’s capable.

He wants to show other people with disabilities that they’re capable too.

After his injury and about four months of rehabilitation, he met with a college counselor. Taylor felt compelled to help others dealing with traumatic injuries and disabilities. He was back in school within a month, working toward a master’s degree in rehabilitation and mental health counseling from the University of Iowa.

He now works for the Center for Independent Living, a national nonprofit that helps people with disabilities become independent. The Fort Myers location provides durable medical equipment — wheelchairs, commodes, walkers, canes, blood pressure cuffs — for free, teaches life skills classes and finds accessible housing.

Three weeks post-hurricane, Taylor works grueling hours to help meet the Center’s skyrocketing demand.

Kukugra is just one of many who lost critical medical equipment in the storm. In a normal week, the Center gives away about five wheelchairs. In the weeks after the storm, they deliver, assemble and distribute as many as 20 to consumers in a day.

The exhaustion coursing through Taylor’s body is no match for his urge to help.

Taylor parks, gets out of his car and wheels himself and the wheelchair for Kukugra under the carport. He calls Kukugra’s phone — a step without a ramp stops him from reaching the door.

“Hello, this is Travis with the Center For Independent Living. I just pulled up. How can I get to your door?”

Moments later, Kukugra rolls out in his temporary, foldable wheelchair, his wife following closely behind. The man stops before the step and sees the wheelchair. The corner of his mouth raises into a small smile.

“I don’t even know what to say,” Kukugra says. “Thank you so much.”

His eyes are wide as he scans the wheelchair. Taylor smiles with him. This is his favorite part of the job: seeing the relief flood people’s faces. He knows this feeling all too well.

“It’s brand new and yours forever,” Taylor tells him.

A flash of exchanged paperwork and excitedly scribbled signatures follow.

When it’s time to say goodbye, Kukugra and Taylor face each other, sitting eye to eye. There’s a moment of silence. Taylor holds out his hand for a handshake. Kukugra grasps it and doesn’t let go. They stay like that for a few heavy seconds, staring at each other.

“God bless you,” Kukugra tells him.

Once back in his car, Taylor breathes a relieved sigh. After weeks of looking tragedy in the face, the small successes feel monumental. They are why he keeps pushing forward.

***

Pushing forward is a mantra Taylor learned from wrestling.

What began as a hobby in the third grade to get him and his rowdy brothers out of the house quickly became his life’s work. By the time he reached high school, he was traveling for competitions, celebrating wins and relishing in the connections he made.

Taylor got used to failure. Wrestling was a gritty sport, requiring strength and strategy. Taylor often lost when he started, but it only made him work harder.

After placing second in Iowa’s wrestling competition — a failure in his eyes — he hung the medal on his rearview mirror. He looked at it each time he sat in his car, the silver glint a reminder to keep pushing.

Taylor trained nonstop. He made history the following year as the first state wrestling champion in his small hometown of Callender, Iowa.

For college, he was offered a full-ride wrestling scholarship. He was on his way to a national title.

Until one summer day presented a match he couldn’t have trained for.

July 3, 2010, was a sweltering day. Taylor was 20 and freshly graduated with an associate degree from Iowa Central Community College. He and a group of friends had just completed a 40-mile bike ride for the Firecracker 40, a Fourth of July tradition in the neighboring town of Gowrie.

Seeking solace from the summer heat, the group cooled off at a swimming pool after the long trip through the town.

Taylor went to do a flip into the pool, but he underestimated the distance between the surface and bottom. It was too short. Quickly, the sanctuary from the sun turned to peril.

Taylor’s head hit the pool’s solid bottom.

He lay at the bottom and stared at the bright, rippling surface.

“Alright, it’s time to get up,” Taylor thought. “Move your arms. Move your legs.”

But he couldn’t. Taylor never accepted defeat, yet he embraced this loss by taking a deep breath of water. He expected to drown.

For some reason, he wasn’t afraid. A complete calm overtook him as he fell into darkness.

On the surface, there was panic. Taylor’s friends lifted him out of the pool. They called 911 and performed CPR. He was resuscitated by the time emergency services arrived. He swayed in and out of consciousness, struggling to breathe.

Taylor was airlifted to Mercy Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. He awoke a few days later, hooked to a breathing tube, his neck and shoulders in extreme pain. He was unable to move anything from the neck down.
***
“At 20, he would never walk — never wrestle — again. But he also knew he couldn’t sit at the bottom of the pool forever. He had to break through to the surface.”
***

Taylor later learned he had suffered a C5 spinal cord injury. This injury often results in paralysis of both the upper and lower body — quadriplegia. But doctors were hesitant to use this word, as everyone recovers differently. There was still hope Taylor would one day be able to move his limbs.

The next three weeks were spent in and out of surgeries. He began therapy to regain movement.

Sit up. Go back down. Sit up. Go back down.

Then, it was time to breathe on his own as doctors removed the tracheostomy tube.

In, out. In, out.

He wrestled with his newest opponent: rehabilitation.

The two grappled on the hospital bed, fighting in the ring from sunup to sundown. The match was a full-time job and lasted four months. Most days he came out the champion, pinning his injury to the mat.

Taylor started moving his hands and shoulders again, clinging to the small successes that moved him forward. He familiarized new movements and found his balance. He was no longer a stranger to his body.

Sometimes, it felt like the end of his world. At 20, he would never walk — never wrestle — again. But he also knew he couldn’t sit at the bottom of the pool forever. He had to break through to the surface.

Taylor regained his independence in strides: strides that required two wheels.

Pushing forward became his motto — his life’s goal.

Yet tragedy wasn’t finished with Taylor. In 2012, his father died just as he was about to graduate from Buena Vista University. He was 45.

Until then, Taylor felt he had control. Like wrestling, recovering from his injury took training and perseverance. But there was no playbook of moves for coping with his father’s death. Suddenly he was back under the water, unable to break through the surface that threatened to drown him all over again.

He couldn’t bring his father back. He couldn’t take away his family’s pain. He could only do what he always does: push forward.

Taylor is familiar with trauma. It’s a lifelong opponent he will constantly wrestle with. But now he can coach others to do the same.

To the people with disabilities who Taylor serves in his work, he represents a beacon of hope — evidence that there is still opportunity for life after tragedy, or that a disability does not have to be a weakness.

His position and story became even more crucial after Hurricane Ian. Taylor, who is no stranger to adversity, faced the unimaginable loss of the Fort Myers community. For him, it was a call to action.

***

Taylor moved to Fort Myers in 2020. Florida’s warm climate drew him in; the absence of snowy winters made navigating with a wheelchair easier.

Despite living most of his life in Iowa, on the outskirts of Tornado Alley, nothing could have prepared Taylor for Hurricane Ian.

When Ian’s path shifted south to Fort Myers, there were about twelve hours to decide: stay and weather the storm or get out. Taylor, like always, wanted to help. So he stayed.

He sat in his home that Wednesday, windows shuttered, bathtub filled with water and supplies stocked. The storm raged outside like a screeching train with a never-ending line of cars.

Taylor withstood the storm, grounding himself in what felt like the vortex of a tornado.

***

“Taylor was a newcomer, but he knew the people of Southwest Florida would never be the same. All they could do was rebuild, and no one knew that process better than he.”

***

A small radio provided hints of what was happening beyond his doors. Desperate calls came over the airwaves: “Is there anyone to save me? I’m on top of my roof. I’m trying to get out.” All Taylor could do was sit and listen to the pleading voices until it became too mentally draining. He lay down and tried to forget. He knew when he awoke, there would be much to do and many to help.

When Ian finally relinquished Fort Myers, it left behind a city forever changed. Sun-soaked beaches were swept away and waterlogged pieces of lives remained.

Taylor spent the day after the storm checking on his neighbors and addressing minimal damage to his home. On his street, trees and power lines were down. His neighbor, a reporter, showed him photos of other areas. The scenes he saw were incomprehensible. While he should have felt relief that he was OK, Taylor felt guilty. How could he be OK when it was clear so many were not? Looking at those photos, he knew with a sinking, familiar feeling that people’s lives had been upended.

Taylor was a newcomer, but he knew the people of Southwest Florida would never be the same. All they could do was rebuild, and no one knew that process better than he. He may not have grown up there, but he would support the community as if he did.

On Sept. 30, two days after the storm, Taylor returned to work. He drove his van cautiously through debris-littered roads and downed stop lights. People sped through intersections, and the sound of emergency sirens seemed to come from all directions.

Immediately, the Center’s staff got to work scanning their consumer database and calling each person: “Hi, what can we do to help you?”

There was an influx of people with flooded, destroyed homes. Many of the Center’s consumers lost medical equipment crucial to their existence.

On the first day, Taylor delivered warm meals and basic supplies. He spent the day in his van, dropping off food to those in their database.

When a family that had been frequent clients at the Center pulled up, they cried and thanked Taylor for the food. Their car was caked in mud and grass. It was the last possession they had.

To Taylor, it was a symbol.

This car and this family had prevailed against the storm. While they may be in rough shape, they would make it. They would push forward.

About a week after the storm, Taylor visited the Hertz Arena, normally used for sports and entertainment. It now housed about 500 people even weeks after the storm as a Red Cross shelter. Its temporary residents were a mix of families, older adults, people with disabilities and anyone and everyone in between.

The inside of the arena was a mess of air mattresses, beds and cots scattered across the floor. Nurses hurried around, tending to crying babies or struggling seniors.

Taylor was there to deliver wheelchairs and walkers to nurses, who would distribute the equipment. But as he moved through the shelter, people approached him begging for help, pleading for wheelchairs. And Taylor, who had experienced so much tragedy, felt the saddest and most hopeless he had ever been.

He tried to write down names.

“Hey, I’m coming back here at 11 a.m. tomorrow. I will bring what you need, and we’ll meet right in this area here,” he told them.

Taylor sat a little taller for the first time in a week as he provided for these people. A wheelchair or a walker becomes a part of one’s body. The least he could do was give them a bit of their independence back.

These people lost everything, but now they had something to claim as theirs again.

***

Guilt eats away at Taylor throughout the day and in the evenings when he returns to already repaired home. He goes to the beach or watches a film to take his mind off the storm. The weeks are a blur of interactions with person after person, family after family dealing with homelessness and hopelessness. His survivor’s guilt plagues his mind with questions:

Why should I, someone who has been in Fort Myers for barely two years, still have my home when so many people — some who have lived in the city their whole lives — do not?

Most nights, Taylor can’t escape the sadness.

Yet he wakes up each morning and arrives at the Center at 7:30, ready to answer phone call after phone call, because he knows what it feels like to have your entire life altered in a single day.

His phone rings incessantly most days. He tries his best to answer every call.

The callers often ask about housing, which normally, the Center would help people find. In the days since Ian, Taylor can’t keep up with the need.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he says, the brow between his bright blue eyes furrowed into distressed lines. In a city where affordable, accessible housing is already scarce, the hurricane makes solutions seemingly more impossible.

Another call comes in later that day from Mark Wilson. The 70-year-old needs a new cane. He tells Taylor he’s unable to walk inside and asks if it can be brought to his car.

“I’m in a wheelchair myself, but I can get it out to you,” Taylor says to him.

When Wilson arrives a few hours later, Taylor meets the man at his car. He eyes Taylor in his wheelchair, watching as he makes his way down the ramp and to his rolled-down car window. They begin to talk like old friends.

Wilson reaches into his back seat and picks up his old cane. He holds it up for Taylor to see, pointing out the cracked part that makes it unusable.

In exchange, Taylor passes him a shiny, black cane with wheels at the bottom.

“I just got approved for a new prosthetic leg!” he tells Taylor, who smiles and tells him that’s great.

The process of approval took forever, Wilson complains. He went to doctor after doctor, trying to explain his needs. He huffs about doctors and insurance agents who just didn’t understand.

They just don’t get it, Wilson tells Taylor. But you do, he says.

“You and me, we live it every day,” Wilson says.

Taylor smiles.

***

It’s February, almost five months after Hurricane Ian, and the Center has morphed to the needs of its community again.

Courses on life skills and independence are back in full swing, now accompanied by support groups where the community can talk through their trauma and ongoing difficulties post-hurricane. Taylor sits with people as they vent about insurance claims or offer advice on staying positive.

He and other Center staff worked with the nonprofit Disability Rights Florida, Lee County officials and the state to conduct accessibility assessments at hurricane shelters. They advocated for accessible restrooms and showers and hazard-free grounds so that people with walkers and wheelchairs can move freely. Taylor hopes the shelters will be better equipped for everyone the next time a hurricane comes.

Taylor’s days are still long, but the nights are kinder now. More restful.

Hints of normalcy are popping up — a rebuilt house here, a repaired business there. Before his eyes, Taylor has watched Fort Myers transform. Its people have not lost sight of hope.

And neither has Taylor. It’s been years since his second-place wrestling medal hung over his rearview mirror, reminding him to work hard each day, but its power still exists.

Every day, Taylor wakes up and gets into his wheelchair.

“Hey, you’re going to get underestimated today, but you have a lot to offer. Prove it,” he says to himself.

The wheelchair that he’ll need for the rest of his life, the wheelchair that aids his independence, serves as his reminder now. A reminder that he’s more than capable of pushing forward past injuries, loss and destruction.

He gets into his wheelchair and goes to work, ready to be that reminder for someone else — for his new community as they recover from the storm.

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