ASPIRING ACTRESS GETS NEW MOBILITY.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Independence Day came early this year for 22-year-old Rebekah Stevens.

No longer will this witty, intelligent young woman with cerebral palsy have to dodge lighted cigarettes dangling at the sides of smokers who don't see her coming down a crowded street in her wheelchair -- eye level with their burning smokes.

No longer will she have to avoid stairs and rough terrain, or look for a handicap curb cut to cross the street.

No longer will she have to ask a stranger for help in the supermarket to reach a box of cereal on an upper shelf.

``And no longer will my friends have to look down at the top of my head when they're talking to me, and see my bad dye job,'' she said Thursday, laughing as she celebrated her own Independence Day at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Rebekah had driven in from her family home in Las Vegas with her mother Janice Stevens and her best friend from college, Trinity Pratt, to undergo five hours of training to operate her new mobility system -- the iBOT 4000.

Northridge Hospital is one of only two medical sites on the West Coast that evaluate candidates and train them to use this gyro-balanced device that allows wheelchair users to rise up to eye level with friends as they walk and talk.

It allows them to climb stairs, go for hikes on dirt trails and get over 5-inch curbs. It allows them the independence they've never had.

``As a woman with a disability, seen as the weakest of the weak, it'll be nice for a change to show the guys I have better toys than they do,'' Rebekah said, kidding with Trinity as they walked down the hospital hallway looking eye to eye for the first time.

The two met on the crew team at Davidson College. ``I was rowing, and Rebekah was coxing. I could tell right then she was someone special, someone I wanted to be my friend,'' Trinity said.

The women leave next week for London, where Rebekah has been accepted to study Shakespearan acting and directing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Trinity will stay with her for a month to help her get settled and comfortable moving around London, a city not known for its wheelchair accessibility.

``I'm most looking forward to using the height function,'' Rebekah said. ``With all the smokers there, it's a death trap being lower.''

This is the fifth iBOT 4000 model that Ron Bell has trained someone on since the beginning of the year at Northridge Hospital.

``Rebekah is, by far, the sharpest, most prepared student I've had yet,'' said the product consultant for Independence Technology, a Johnson & Johnson company that launched the mobility system in 2003.

Candidates are first evaluated by a doctor to make sure they have the upper-body capacity and strength to control the device, which costs about $25,000.

So far, about 40 percent of all iBOT users have had the mobility device covered by insurance, and recently Veterans Affairs issued coverage for returning GIs who qualify. Medicare approval is currently undergoing a six-month review.

With more than 2 million people in the United States using a wheelchair or some type of mobility aid, there's still a long way to go before a device like this can bring independence to a lot more people.

But it's a start.

``In our society, height is such a social status, even though it shouldn't be,'' Rebekah said.

``You don't know what it means to be able to look my mother or Trinity in the eye like this, and say let's go for a hike down a dirt trail or up a flight of stairs together.

``Many people take these things, their independence, for granted,'' she said. ``They shouldn't.''

The next free iBOT demonstration and test drive at Northridge Hospital Medical Center will be held all day July 24.

To sign up, call [phone]. For more information on the iBOT system, go to www.ibotnow.com.

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

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Photo:

Rebekah Stevens, 22, who has cerebral palsy, has received a new wheelchair that gives her more mobility and makes it possible to be at eye level with friend Trinity Pratt, 21. Rebekah will be attending London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts this fall.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer