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California disability advocate dies in boat accident

Laurie Hoirup, who lived with spinal muscular atrophy, died on July 4th at the age of 60. She was strapped to her wheelchair when she fell into the Sacramento River and drowned.
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Laurie Hoirup was a big fan of the Green Bay Packers. The vocal disability advocate died this week at the age of 60.
As It Happens8:06California disability advocate who defied odds all her life dies in freak boat accident

Laurie Hoirup never took life for granted. When the Sacramento woman was first diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, she wasn't expected to live past the age of one. Not only did she survive that first year, she became a leading political voice on disability rights, gave birth to two children, and wrote a memoir. 
Maybe it's that history of defying the odds that makes Hoirup's death this week at the age of 60 so hard for her friends to comprehend. 

Laurie Hoirup celebrating her 60th birthday this past March. Hoirup died on July 4th, 2016 after falling into the Sacramento River in her wheelchair, and drowning.

Hoirup had been enjoying the July 4th fireworks on a boat on the Sacramento River. When the boat returned to the dock, Hoirup went to exit on her wheelchair along a ramp. The boat and the ramp shifted slightly, sending Hoirup falling into the water, still strapped to her chair.

Hoirup's friend and fellow disability advocate, Catherine Campisi, was there.

"We heard some hollering, and we discovered that Laurie had fallen into the water. Her husband dove in with her, but her chair was very heavy — a heavy-weight power wheelchair. He tried to get her, but she was strapped in the chair and had a lap tray. Despite his efforts, along with her daughter and son-in-law and bystanders who jumped in, nobody could get her freed from the chair," Campisi tells As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner.

Laurie Hoirup, centre, enjoying the Fourth of July holiday with family and friends, including Catherine Campisi, left. Hoirup died later that evening. (HOIRUP FAMILY)

Campisi and Hoirop had become very close in recent years.

"She was such an incredibly strong woman. Not strong in muscle, but strong in spirit and determination and wanting to live a full life, which she totally did," Campisi says.

Laurie Hoirup, pictured with her mother, Dottie Nelson. In Hoirup's autobiography, she praises her mother for defining Hoirup by her abilities, instead of her disability. (HOIRUP FAMILY)

Campisi says Hoirup was also fiercely independent -- and it was Hoirup's mother that helped to instill that in her.

"From very early on, she had Laurie totally integrated with her friends. And they helped Laurie do some rather personal things — to use the restroom, for example. Her mother wasn't hovering around all the time."

Laurie Hoirup, pictured at the age of seven. When Hoirup was born, doctors told her parents she wouldn't survive as a newborn because of her physical limitations due to spinal muscular atrophy.

It was part of that independence that lead to Laurie giving birth, despite being told she wouldn't be able to.

"When [doctors] told her she wouldn't have children, she went ahead and found a doctor that was willing to work with her and support her — and she had two healthy, wonderful children," Campisi says.

Laurie Hoirup and her husband JR Hoirup, who married in 1996.

Campisi says one of Hoirup's life-long goals was to have a full-time job. She eventually achieved that milestone at the age of 45, and a few years later would go on to serve under former Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger on the State Council for Developmental Disabilities.

In Hoirup's autobiography, "I Can Dance: My Life with a Disability," she wrote: "Never in my wildest dreams might I have imagined me, someone who has virtually no muscles and uses a wheelchair, working for the actor who portrayed Conan the Barbarian and the Terminator."

Campisi says part of Hoirup's motivation to work in advocacy at the political level was to challenge the idea that people with disabilities were ill-equipped to work.

"She saw how unfair that was. And rather than turning that anger inward, she tried to channel it into making change so that people understood that they need to look at people's abilities, not what they see in terms of disabilities."

To hear more, take a listen above to our full interview. 

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