TEMECULA — To visit Cpl. Juan Dominguez in his new “smart home” adapted to his combat injuries, his friends will wind through streets with names from the traumatic event that led to the Marines being sent to Afghanistan.
Off Meadows Parkway, they’ll cruise along Nacke Drive, then Bradshaw Drive, Dahl Drive and Lyles Drive, all named for people who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.
From Lyles Drive, they’ll come to Rivera Drive, also named for someone who was on the flight that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members thwarted the terrorists’ plan to crash the aircraft in Washington.
PHOTOS: Triple-amputee veteran given homeMidway down Rivera Drive is the home presented Tuesday to the 28-year-old Dominguez, who lost both legs and his right arm in Afghanistan in October 2010 in a roadside bomb explosion while on a walking patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province, long a Taliban stronghold.
The home will give him a “second chance at life,” Dominguez said at a short and emotional ceremony with his wife, Alexis, standing by his side.
The two-story home has been modified with an elevator, self-flushing toilets, easy opening cabinets, and doors, lighting and heating that can be controlled with the touch of an iPad.
Money to build and modify the home was raised by actor Gary Sinise and the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
Siller was a New York firefighter killed on 9/11 after running three miles through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel with 75 pounds of gear on his back to reach the crumbling towers of the World Trade Center. He was among 343 firefighters killed that day.
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