“He has to have a lift mechanism and he has to have a wheelchair so that he can be mobile wherever he travels to,” explains Hartman. A full-time tool and dye engineer and part time tinkerer, Hartman found his starting place.
“I had to make a frame to fit the motorcycle,” he says. He cobbled that together with stuff around his workshop. “I never throw anything out,” he says. “Scrap is gold to me.”
Hartman fitted the frame with an electric tongue jack from a camping trailer. A push of the button uses the motorcycle’s own battery to hoist the wheelchair up into the air and then over the bike locking it into place.
With a little know-how and about $300 dollars worth of parts Vaughn has something money can’t buy. His road legs back – and his freedom.
“I do not think about the fact that I cannot walk, it’s not even close to my mind while I’m riding,” says Pembroke. “That’s what I wanted. I wanted to see him ride again,” says Hartman chocking back tears.
But the quest doesn’t stop here. After working out some of the kinks the duo wants to help other people with disabilities- people who are otherwise able to drive with hand controls- to get back on motorcycles again.
“I want to see 100 of them going down the road. It doesn’t matter what your disability is we can get you on the road,” says Hartman.
