Moving To Houston In Order To Move On

[editor]

Moving to Houston in Order to Move On

By JOSEPH P. FRIED

Published: September 4, 2005

Moving to Houston

In Order to Move On

Edgar Rivera's feelings are mixed about his planned move to Houston from New York City.

After all, he loves New York, "where I grew up and lived my life," he says. But to rebuild his life after he was maimed in an act of random violence, a warm-weather setting is a prerequisite, he has concluded.

In April 1999, Mr. Rivera, above, then 37, was returning to his Bronx apartment from his job at a Manhattan copy shop when he was pushed to the tracks in front of a train entering an East Side subway station.

The train severed both his legs, one below the knee and the other beneath the midthigh. The man who pushed him, Julio Perez, had a history of mental illness, though a jury rejected his insanity defense and found him guilty of attempted murder. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

The assault on Mr. Rivera happened four months after a Manhattan resident, Kendra Webdale, 32, was killed when she was shoved in front of an arriving train at another Manhattan subway station by a man who also was mentally ill. The two events led to the state's enactment of Kendra's Law, which gave judges more authority to order mentally ill people to comply with treatment.

Mr. Rivera won an undisclosed financial settlement stemming from a lawsuit in which he claimed that several hospitals had inadequately treated Mr. Perez.

Last week, shortly after returning from a successful house-hunting trip to Houston with his wife and three children, Mr. Rivera spoke of his decision to leave New York.

After he lost his legs, he and his family moved within their complex to another apartment whose doorways and halls had been widened to accommodate his wheelchair. But with elevator breakdowns, he said, he could not always count on getting down from the seventh floor.

A handicapped-accessible house in the New York area proved elusive "with the moneys we had at the time," he said. But as he searched, he said, he began thinking that the weather, too, was important. Mr. Rivera has not worked since he lost his legs, and his goal, he said, is "getting back into the game and providing for my family again."

"But who would hire someone," he said, who could not get to work when it snowed?

And so, Houston.

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I'd love to know how this story turns out.