Meet Bill, me+ Community member

Serving twenty-five years as a municipal police officer and training sergeant, Bill Fertig knows a thing, or two about public service. He specializes in situational awareness and self-defense planning to minimize risk of harm. 

In 1999, Bill had an off-duty motorcycle accident resulting in T-7 paraplegia. After a rehabilitation hospital stay, his career in emergency services continued as an emergency 911 dispatcher. In 2005 Bill accepted the Director position with United Spinal Association’s Spinal Cord Injury Resource Center. For over sixteen years at United Spinal, Bill leveraged his expertise to help support wheelchair users, caregivers, case managers, and medical professionals, sharing personal success stories and experiences living with spinal cord injury.

Bill is routinely asked for recommendations on adaptive products and services for increased independence. He has discovered many innovative products on the market, but what met his needs didn’t necessarily work for others as needs are quite individualized. His passion for helping others faced with similar circumstances and frustrations to his own has fueled his desire to do more for the SCI/D community – leading him to become a more successful advocate and entrepreneur.

A resident of Virginia Beach, VA, Bill is an avid beachgoer, but struggled to find an existing beach chair that worked for his and his family's needs. Oversized, hard to puth, uncomfortable, and unattractive, and impossible to transport were a handful of reasons Bill decided to tackle product innovation. Working with his wife Noreen, and his son, Chris, their small team set up a business, successfully marketing the innovative Sand Rider. "It was an exhaustive but rewarding experience inventing, patenting, trademarking and successfully marketing Sand Rider custom beach wheelchair. We helped many hundreds of people with limited mobility get back to an active lifestyle with their families." 

Continuously navigating accessibility challenges and access to equipment are a few of the many barriers for wheelchair users like Bill. He met with US Senators and House Representatives on Capitol Hill for fifteen years to help garner support and enact much-needed legislation that protects the fundamental rights and services for disabled Americans, specifically those living with spinal cord injury and disorder (SCI/D). 

Bill advocated through and with United Spinal Association, and individually, for full access to complex Rehab Technology (CRT), including customized, personalized wheelchairs, in hopes of having Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and private health insurers reimburse for appropriately prescribed wheelchairs. It took ten years of advocacy with Congress and several new pieces of legislation to finally cement appropriate CRT provisions and insurance coverage. “It was a long and complex process, but worth the efforts once we were ultimately successful."

“Healthcare is obviously quite important for everyone but much more critical when living with SCI/D and specifically when Self-catheterizing”, says Bill. He adds, “There are many types and configurations of catheters from which to select exactly what is best designed for a particular individual. While 14fr is a common catheter dimension, my needs also include a coude-tipped catheter to avoid urethral strictures which I had come to experience”.

Bill’s position with the United Spinal SCI Resource Center allowed him to learn of all SCI care options and products, more so than someone not having that access. He’s tried many of the available products but centered upon the GentleCath, Hydrophilic, male, 14fr, coude-tipped catheter for routine use. The hydrophilic coating allows for ease of insertion, complementing the coude-tip feature. “Best of all though, to avoid continual urinary tract infections, UTI’s, the GentleCath no-touch feature has allowed me to be UTI-free as I never need to touch the inserted portion of the catheter!” Bill recently experimented with the Cure Closed System catheters for use while out of the home, and while traveling, and found the closed system worked every bit as effectively as the GentleCath straight catheter.

Since retired, Bill enjoys spending time with his wife, adult children, and grandkids. When he’s not at the beach, Bill continues to devote his personal life to helping people with SCI discover their inner resourcefulness by serving on the Board of Directors for Virginia Beach Adaptive Watersports and United Spinal Association’s Virginia Chapter, along with multiple SCI-focused working groups.

Bill continues to collaborate with the North American SCI Consortium, (NASCIC). The North American SCI group is comprised of SCI advocates and SCI researchers and other stakeholders. The consortium’s mission is to bring about unified achievements in research, care, cure, and policy by supporting best coordinated efforts across the greater spinal cord injured community throughout North America.

Seeing an unmet need in personal self-defense guidance for people living with a physical disability, Bill developed and piloted implementation of an informed self-defense program leveraging his thirty years in law enforcement. “Living with complete paraplegia and using a manual wheelchair full time adds new dimensions to personal safety. The greater preparation though is not in physical self-defense efforts and techniques but in thinking differently. Fundamentally, thinking through different danger scenarios ahead of time, and maintaining good situational awareness in the moment is far more effective and safer too”, says Bill.