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<\/p>\nTexas Parks and Wildlife says specialized wheelchairs help visitors with mobility challenges enjoy the beach at no cost.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 A day at the beach isn’t always easy for everyone, but Texas Parks and Wildlife is working to make sure more people can enjoy the Texas coast.<\/p>\n
Visitors to\u00a0Mustang Island State Park can borrow specialized beach wheelchairs free of charge, giving people with mobility challenges easier access to the sand and, in some cases, the water.<\/p>\n
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Suzanne Smith with Texas Parks and Wildlife said the park offers two types of beach wheelchairs.<\/p>\n
One model\u00a0is designed\u00a0for traveling across soft sand with oversized wheels, while the other is a floating wheelchair that allows visitors to enter the water safely.<\/p>\n
“Anybody who comes to the park can use these wheelchairs free of charge,” Smith said. “They just need to come up to the headquarters, fill out a user agreement, and the rangers will even deliver it to them out on the beach.”<\/p>\n
Smith said the service eliminates the need for visitors to transport the specialized equipment themselves.<\/p>\n
The beach wheelchairs are available to anyone with mobility challenges, not just people who regularly use wheelchairs.<\/p>\n
“Anybody who has mobility issues,” Smith said. “You don’t have\u00a0to regularly use a wheelchair. We all know walking in sand can be a little bit rough, so the beach wheelchair makes it a lot easier.”<\/p>\n
Texas Parks and Wildlife has offered beach wheelchairs for several years, with the floating wheelchair being the newest addition to the program.<\/p>\n
Smith said providing accessible recreation is an important part of the park’s mission.<\/p>\n
“We love\u00a0when\u00a0everybody gets the opportunity to enjoy our state parks, and this allows more people the opportunity.”<\/p>\n
Visitors interested in using a beach wheelchair should stop by the Mustang Island State Park headquarters upon arrival. After completing a user agreement, park staff will deliver the wheelchair directly to their spot on the beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Parks and Wildlife says specialized wheelchairs help visitors with mobility challenges enjoy the beach at no cost.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-372569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}