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Help Move My Shop Or Be Shut Down

Hank Weseman is organizing this fundraiser.
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                        (Beach Cruzr Customer Above)

From Speedboat Racer to Wheelchair
My name is Hank Weseman, Jr., I drove a 1/4 mile drag boat professionally in both the I.H.B.A & N.J.B.A. Associations from 1987 until my crash in 1992. The boat got loose at 140 mph and I was thrown in head -first, backwards while rotating upside down. The impact snapped my neck back and ripped my helmet off. At that speed water is like concrete.. I spent 7 days in a coma, 31 days on life support and 6 months in 2 different hospitals with brain damage including the brain stem and some clouding at the C-1vertabrae. My brain could no longer communicate with my body.  Gone was my ability to breathe, move, eat, walk, and talk. Rehabilitation for an accident this severe my therapist said, isn't measured in days and weeks, but measured in months and years.  I had  to re-learn how to breathe, swallow, talk, move pretty much everything. As soon as I realized I would be using a wheelchair for the long haul, I started thinking about how I would continue to enjoy some of the things I used to do before my accident. So after 6 years of full time therapy, in 1998 I started Hot Shot Products to fill the void in accessibility and to encourage disabled people to get on with their life and to pursue their activities and experience enhanced mobility. I promote that it isn’t  about disability and what you CAN’T do, but  about ability and what you CAN do.

I have invented an all-terrain wheel system for everyday manual wheelchairs, power chairs, wagons, baby strollers, baby joggers,etc.,I also invented and built the first ever electric powered all-terrain beach wheelchair, which I call the Beach Cruzr. My products are all around the world now.

Fom 1998 until 2007 I had a 1000 sq. ft shop in Torrance, Ca. In 2007 when the economy started to slow down orders went down by 60% - 70%, and disabled people were not thinking about spending money on a Beach Crur to roam around the sand,. like most people at that time, they were holding on to their money. Numbers dont lie and my shop overhead started to tip the scale to show negative every month. Thre were only 2 choices, one being shut down Hot Shot Products but that would leave 130 Beach Cruzr customers as well as 6 cities without support and parts  that have Beach Cruzrs for public use. The second choice was to  downsize and thats the choice I made. We fit the tools we absolutley needed into my apartments single car garage. the rest is down the street in a storage unit For the past 7 years we have made it work but with a still poor economy and higher cost of living we are squeeking by. The other problem is that being a disabled quad requires me to need caregivers, morning, aftrnoon & night 7 days a week. It has been this way since the crash. Its a big expense every month and it takes most of the profits and if not really busy The numbers get tight,if not dip into the red . The city is forcing me to move to a location where its zoned for what we do or they will shut us down. The result of that is two fold, one being no suport for existing customers, No getting kids & adults on the sand and putting their feet in the ocean, lake or river let alone designing something to make someones life a little better. The other is me being single an living alone, my caregivers work for me , they are not family or friends. The numbers say that if I dont have this business and income, after paying caregivers I cant survive. When you read my bio on my website you will see I have always worked hard and dont mind it. We make alot of people happy and I would like to continue.  I greatly appreciate any help you can give.
 
For the full story, pictures, videos,  testimonials  locatations around the world of where I have my products, go to my website at www.hotshotproducts.org and check out other products I invent and build. lick on " Customer Appreciation" button at the top of Home Page. Ccheck out the video of Hank's story from the TV show " Inside Edition " Special. Its on my home page on the left hand side in blue letters.

www.hotshotproducts.org

Organizer

Hank Weseman
Organizer
Redondo Beach, CA

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