Jeff Yates was in the back seat of a car when it fish-tailed and crashed into a barrier at 60km per hour in 1999. His two friends walked away; his neck was broken, leaving him paralysed from the chest down. Before that, Yates had been a good soccer and rugby player, and reasonable at golf.His life had changed dramatically."I really just focused on learning to drive again, finding a job, trying to live some sort of normal life," said Yates, co-founder of the Adaptive Sports Fund (ASF), which makes extreme sports accessible to disabled people."In the beginning you're angry because you feel you didn't deserve this. You're also very frustrated, even the easiest tasks become difficult."story_article_left1Putting on socks took 15 minutes.His yearning for sport returned, and he discovered hand-cycling after spotting disabled star Pieter du Preez training on the road one day in 2011.Yates tracked him down and went for a spin. "From that day I knew this is going to be my next adventure."Then he wondered what else there was, and he teamed up with Mathys Roets for snow-skiing at the Afriski resort in Lesotho."When we started these different projects we realised it'll be better to offer this to everybody, not just me. That's how the foundation started."Wakeboarding and go-karting followed. Paragliding will be launched in December, and kite-surfing in February next year. There have been requests for downhill mountain biking and horse riding.The ASF has also organised two electric wheelchairs for golf, which can negotiate the rough and even bunkers.They have hydraulics to stand the player up for each shot."Six weeks ago, for the first time in 19 years, I played golf with my cousin again," said 36-year-old Yates.Much equipment has been donated, like the golf chairs which sell for R400,000. The paraglider is being built for R5000, saving the foundation the R80,000 price tag.Kobus Oeschger, paralysed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 12 in 1983, is what Yates jokingly refers to as ASF's crash test dummy.story_article_right2The two-time Paralympian is good enough to use the main cable that loops 800m around the Stoke City wake park lake in Midrand, but novices start on the straight cable.One rule is to let go when they fall, but one wakeboarder held on a little too long and was dragged."He was pulled out of his pants," Yates recalled with a laugh.Dries Millard was in matric in 2008 when he was paralysed after driving his car off Du Toit's Kloof pass in the Cape to avoid an oncoming truck; in hospital he learned he had made the SA schools rugby team.Always an ardent surfer, he returned to the water quickly. "My legs just slapped me in the face."Now using an adapted board that includes a mini water jet motor, Millard made the semifinals of the inaugural adaptive world surfing championships in the US last year.He and Yates, who are teaming up for an adaptive roadshow around the country in the next few months, will take part in next Sunday's global run by Wings For Life, a charity seeking a cure for spinal-cord injuries.Darren Thomas, shot in the chest at point-blank range in a 2007 house robbery, is reliant on his arms and upper body to race against able-bodied drivers on the 270cc go-kart circuit. He has no control of his abdominal muscles."I make the top four," he said.Yates is discovering new worlds, but his greatest dream is yet to materialise. "We're just having fun while we're waiting for a cure."sports@timesmedia.co.za..