David Heim, right, delivers a restored power wheelchair to Robert Potter, a Marine Vietnam veteran in Boston. Photo by C.J. Gunther for USA Today.

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Longtime mechanic David Heim, 47, turned a traumatic event into a transformative encore career. Three years after a car accident that left him in a wheelchair and initially robbed him of his speech, he started a new business refurbishing donated wheelchairs in Marlborough, Mass., called Wheelchair Recycler.

Now, reports Jillian Berman in USA Today, Heim repairs and customizes the wheelchairs and then sells them to people around the world for a fraction of their usual cost. He recognized that people often struggle to find properly fitted chairs, and that Medicaid can refuse coverage for a new, better-fitting one. The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation provides grants that help make the wheelchairs affordable.

Joseph Canose, vice president for quality of life at the foundation, told Berman that many people endure broken wheelchairs because most insurance companies reimburse only a fraction of the $5,000 to $25,000 it costs for a power wheelchair. That makes Heim's price of $800 to $1,000 for a customized, refurbished wheelchair look awfully good.

For those who can't pay, Heim provides wheelchairs free of charge. With nearly 44 million Americans uninsured, among them many with disabilities, the demand for wheelchair recycling continues to grow.