Blind woman drives excavator to signify start of nursing home demolition.
As the engine of the enormous 38-ton Caterpillar excavator tractor roared to life, the person at the controls of the yellow behemoth calmly raised its giant bucket over the top of a nearly 40-year-old Denver nursing home. The operator, social worker Linda Wirth, who has been blind since birth due to retinitis pigmentosa, then dropped the bucket into the middle of the buildings roof, smashing through it like balsa wood. She repeatedly smashed it into bits with precision and skill.
With a smile on her face, Wirth stepped out of the cab to acknowledge a large crowd of cheering spectators who came to view this symphony of destruction. The Nov. 21st demolition marked the final phase of a $66.5 million makeover and expansion at Clermont Park Retirement Community, nestled in southeast Denver near Colorado Boulevard and Yale Avenue.
Wirth, CLCs director of Social Services, was the lucky winner of a drawing among Clermont Park residents and employees to take the first swing at the old nursing home.
Wirth joked, “I can see the headline now – ‘blind social worker destroys nursing home.'”
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