He may be wheelchair-bound, but when dad Dan Kotter sets his mind to achieving something, he gets the job done. The devoted 46-year-old father from West Haven, Utah, used what little free time he had between surgeries and family trips last year to build the ultimate bunk bed for his daughters.
Mr. Kotter, who sustained life-changing injuries in his construction job just over 10 years ago and is paralyzed from the waist down, explained his attitude toward life to The Epoch Times:
“The saying we have is, punch today in the face. Essentially, don’t give up; don’t let the day beat you down; don’t let life beat you down. Don’t make excuses—just try to work hard.”
The play set bedroom took months to complete, but the result is a dream come true for his daughters: Marlee, 2; Maisie, 4; and Quinn, 12.
Mr. Kotter also has another daughter, Mikayla, 17, from a previous marriage, and his wife Andrea Kotter has two sons, Noah, 16, and Uriah, 11, from her previous marriage. In total, six beautiful children make up their blended family.
The couple met after the accident, and he proposed shortly afterward. They have just celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary.
“Busy days,” Mr. Kotter said, laughing.
Watch Mr. Kotter building the bunkbed:
Mr. Kotter was working on the roof of a house when the horrific accident happened on Aug. 17, 2013. The roof collapsed, causing him to fall some 35 feet onto a cement garage floor, breaking his back in several places in addition to his pelvis. When he was rushed to hospital, the assessing doctor discovered several broken vertebrae and a collapsed lung.
“One of my tools, a hammer, was behind me, and the assumption was I probably landed on that. It changed my life,” said Mr. Kotter, who struggles daily with extremely painful adhesive arachnoiditis, a neurological condition caused by damage to the tissues protecting the spinal cord.
At the time, Mr. Kotter, a former law enforcer and oil field worker, was right in the middle of a divorce. Little did he know, as he was grappling with the enormous adjustment to a new reality, that he was about to meet his future wife.
Mr. Kotter’s daily struggle with extremely painful adhesive arachnoiditis:
Mrs. Kotter’s husband at the time had just been in a motorcycle accident, just the day before Mr. Kotter’s accident. He was in a coma for a month and a half, and was left with a severe traumatic brain injury that left him “permanently like a child,” she said.
She was taking care of him, taking him to rehab, and since she and Mr. Kotter were in the hospital system at the same time, they became a source of support to one another. “We both had two kids the same ages and had both kind of just hit rock bottom in our lives. And so, we just became friends,” she said.
Through the course of the situation, Mrs. Kotter separated from her first husband, who went to live in full-time care, and eventually, the two got together and married in 2014.
The challenge, with six kids and three bedrooms to put them in, was figuring out how to configure the space. Searching around for inspiration, Mrs. Kotter spotted a few cool built-in bunk beds online. Mr. Kotter drew out a design incorporating two ground-level beds for the little ones, and a cozy little private nook upstairs for their 12-year-old.
There are bookshelves and a special fold-out desk for the artistic elder daughter, who likes to create and draw. The beds are fitted with hydraulic rams so they can be lifted to access storage space underneath, and downstairs has a neat, pretty chandelier light.
Mr. Kotter pulled off the ambitious project by starting with the tasks furthest away, and building out backward so he wouldn’t be hampered by access issues. The whole thing is a testament to his incredible adaptability.
“It looks exactly like the design; it was pretty cool to watch him build it,” Mrs. Kotter said. “The exciting point for the girls was when we brought their mattresses and blankets and they were just squealing at the fun of it, bringing all their toys and filling the shelves. I think every kid needs to have a place where they feel safe, that feels like their own.”
Mr. Kotter said: “It was super cute. It lit me up inside; probably got me a little teary, just out of pride. Knowing that they’re going to look back and remember these cool beds they had built for them.”
For Mrs. Kotter, the most important thing is knowing how proud and impressed their daughters will be when they grow up and realize what their father did for them.
“Our youngest were born after Dad was in a wheelchair,” Mrs. Kotter said, “so they don’t know any different. That’s just their dad. They definitely don’t fully understand and appreciate how amazing it is that their dad built this from his chair. But when they get older, they will.”
“I’ve always loved building,” Mr. Kotter said.
