HOBART – Blastcamp has announced the recipient of its first Able Award to 12-year-old Kyle Bartolini of Portage.
Blastcamp is a paintball field located at a shuttered Cold War era Nike Missile Defense base.
Owner Virgil Frey created the award to recognize and honor local youth who display courage in the face of adversity. The name of the award was inspired by the first space monkey to successfully travel to space and back.
Bartolini was chosen because of the adversity he has overcome. When he was 3 years old, he attended a friend’s birthday party, opened a nightstand, and found a loaded gun. Not knowing the gun was real, he shot himself in the chest, paralyzing himself from the waist down.
Since then, he has shown a positive attitude over the incident, saying he was glad he shot himself and not another child.
