Bears surprise Highland Park’s Cooper Roberts with wheelchair for the beach

Eight-year-old Cooper Roberts loves the beach, but wheelchairs were not made for sand.

Well, not most of them. On Wednesday, Cooper, the boy left paralyzed from the waist down during the mass shooting July 4 in Highland Park, was given the dune buggy version of a wheelchair. It has huge, gray wheels.

A big grin brightened Cooper’s face as the Chicago Bears, working with the organization Devices 4 the Disabled, presented the boy with his gift after a Bears practice Wednesday.

“Getting to the beach, getting down into the sand, it’s impossible to do in his regular wheelchair,” said a delighted Keely Roberts, the boy’s mother, speaking to the Bears organization. “It’s absolutely impossible. It’s one of those things that, as a family, we would never have been able to help Cooper with without the use of a beach wheelchair.”

Cooper’s father, Jason Roberts, his sister, Emily, and twin brother, Luke, were also there and got to pal around with a group of Bears players Wednesday.

Bears quarterback Justin Fields pushed Cooper around in his new wheelchair.

Cooper’s spinal cord was severed by a bullet. He also suffered organ damage and continues to receive therapy after the shooting at a July 4 celebration in Highland Park. Keely Roberts and Cooper’s twin brother were injured, too, but their wounds were far less serious. His father was at the event but did not get injured. None of his four older sisters was at the celebration.