Can one live your life to the full and fulfill your destiny after a landmine explosion has destroyed both your legs?

Dave Barr has proved that it is possible and has inspired people all over the world. Over the past weekend, he also motivated people in Makhado (Louis Trichardt).

American-born Dave lost his legs while fighting for the SADF in Angola in 1981. “Somehow, my question never was ‘Why me?’ but ‘What now?'” said Dave at a get-together at Cloud’s End Hotel on 16 May.

A seasoned soldier, Dave was always living for a cause when he was a US Marine, a paratrooper in the Israeli Army, an RLI trooper and a parabat pathfinder. After the injury, he learnt to walk again on prosthetic legs. The day when he could ride his Harley Davidson again, he knew that his new job had been given to him. He would travel the world, showing able-bodied and disabled people that anything could be done and raising money and awareness for the disabled. "I will do it as long as God gives me the strength. What I do is a privilege. It is not work as much as a duty that I do willingly,” said the 62-year-old Dave.

With amazing physical strength, he moves his Harley Davidson singlehandedly to the spot where the other bikers have gathered their bikes. He keeps his balance on two iron-like prosthesis, the right leg amputated above the knee and the left leg below the knee. People stretch out their hands automatically to help or to steady him, but he declines all offers of help because it is easier for him to do it on his own. Obviously, after circumnavigating the world alone on his Harley Wide Glide 1200 (1978 model), he is more than capable of coping. He picked up the dead weight of the Wide Glide many times when falling off his bike in the Sahara Desert. Dave covered 132 000 km in three-and-a-half years and describes this gruelling journey in his book Riding the Edge.

Dave had his local audience shivering with just the thought of icy Siberia in winter when he recounted his daring trip alone on a Harley Sportster across Russia, where temperatures at times dropped to -40°C and even -60°C. It was a pure miracle that Dave survived this unbelievable trip, which he recounts in Riding the Ice.  With his dry sense of humour Dave says, “In Siberia I never had cold feet.”

His next trip took him to Australia, riding to the country’s four outermost points on another Sportster. Dave Barr’s rides have earned him three places in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Every ride is interspersed with motivational talks and fundraising, especially for his favourite charity, Chesire Homes, as well as QASA. In South Africa, Cheshire Homes has been serving people with disabilities since 1965, providing residential accommodation to permanently and profoundly disabled adults and children. QASA (QuadPara Association of South Africa) serves quadriplegics and paraplegics and aims to assist people with mobility impairments to lead independent lives.

Dave’s current South African tour was organised with the help of Hoogland Health Hydro of Dr André Kruger and his family, who are accompanying Dave on the tour. “Dave never makes excuses and does everything,” said one of the family members. André, a medical doctor, said that the only thing he had to do on the tour was to fix bikes, since Dave never required medical attention. “Dave is amazing.”

Dave’s message is inspiring to any able-bodied or disabled person. “If you have something in your heart that you say this is what I am here for, ACT on it, because life is not a dress rehearsal, it is real time from beginning until the end,” Dave says.