ROCHESTER — Bob Trebble has no feeling in his lower left leg, the result of a home improvement mishap suffered at his southeast Rochester home. Trebble is a veteran. To help him keep his independence, local groups and volunteers worked to build him a new deck with a handicapped-accessible ramp.
They unveiled their work to the public on Veterans Day.
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Trebble’s injury, suffered several years ago, jeopardized his independence. While working on his roof, Trebble had climbed down to get something. As he headed back up, a nail gun on the roof fell and hit him on the head, firing two nails an inch and half into his skull cap. Trebble lay on the ground for half a day before a neighbor found him. Trebble’s sciatic nerve was crushed from lying on his side so long, permanently depriving him of feeling in his lower leg.
Trebble wears a leg brace to get around but his leg can buckle and he will, in time, need a wheelchair. Trebble, 63, is also a U.S. Army and National Guard veteran and served as a field medical specialist in the 1980s.
To help with his mobility at home, which he shares with his wife Margaret, a group of Rochester retirees spent months working on the project in the couple’s backyard. Trebble is the most recent local veteran to benefit from home improvements through a program called “Homebound Heroes.”
The project was completed just before Veterans Day, making it the most recent of 82 projects completed over the last five years in Olmsted, Rice, and Goodhue counties.
The work is made possible through the collaboration of several nonprofit groups and volunteers, including Meals on Wheels America, The Home Depot Foundation, Family Service Rochester, Redeemer Lutheran Church and The Builders Crew.
The deck was designed and built by an all-volunteer, orange-clad group of retirees called “The Building Crew.” The crew is an eclectic mix of engineers, a physician, a DNR guy and others. They range in age from the mid-50s to 80. It is led by Lou Behrens, a retired IBMer who refers to himself as “chief cat herder.”
“There’s a certain level of camaraderie in it,” Behrens said. “We certainly do it to be helpful, useful in the community.”
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Behrens said the group works “very slowly.”
“Bob kept saying, ‘when are you going to be done?’ And I always sort of say, ‘The after it’s finished,’” Behrens said.
The 15-foot-by-15-foot deck and ramp fills the backyard of the Trebble’s home. Made of a composite material of wood fiber and plastic, it includes a shallow-sloping ADA-compliant ramp that encircles the deck and a handrail. The cost of the project came in “outrageously” higher than original estimates, but the “beauty” of the project was that the labor was “rather inexpensive,” meaning free.
The initiator of the project was Family Service Rochester, a community organization that provides mental health, senior independence and family stability services. Over the last five years, it has been awarded $510,000 in Homebound Heroes funding.
Jessica Thornton, a program manager for Family Services, said when a person calls the group inquiring about its services, it will conduct a comprehensive home visit to determine the kind of help a person needs.
Trebble started receiving lawn care and snow removal services from the group. Knowing he was a veteran, the nonprofit further inquired whether his living arrangement could be improved to help him live independently. It learned that his deck was dilapidated and in rough shape.
Family Services told Trebble that it could help.
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“We realized that this was an improvement that they needed. Our outreach specialist had a connection with Lou and his crew. Lou likes to say, ‘they love hammer swinging volunteer opportunities,’” Thornton said.
Trebble said the deck went “above and beyond” anything he could have imagined.
“I will never have to do anything to the deck for as long as I live, because it won’t deteriorate,” Trebble said.
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