Aila Boyd
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.com
LewisGale Medical Center celebrated a unique milestone on the morning of Nov. 24 as crews removed a mid-1980s Chevy Nova from the hospital’s fourth-floor inpatient rehabilitation gym and replaced it with a modern SUV.
For nearly 30 years, almost 20,000 patients used the Nova as part of their physical and occupational therapy programs. The vehicle, installed inside the rehab gym in the early 1990s, helped patients practice everyday movements such as entering, exiting and maneuvering inside a car.
Construction crews removed windows on the fourth floor to create an opening large enough for the car’s extraction. A SkyTrak oversized forklift lifted the aging vehicle from the building before raising the new model into place. The SUV was modified and fabricated for clinical use by Lift Art Studios, a local metal fabrication shop led by Tay Whiteside.
Hospital officials said they knew of few, if any, other hospitals in the country with a full-sized car inside their facility for therapy purposes. The long-standing presence of the Nova made it a recognizable piece of local lore, and the dramatic swap drew community interest.
