Video by Erin Wisdom

Mike Moseman’s mind doesn’t work quite like it used to.

If it did, he wouldn’t have been in the YMCA pool last week with two of his Special Olympics swimmers, helping them float on their backs and muster the courage to hop off the diving board. He wouldn’t have experienced the swim meet several weeks ago where the kids he coaches garnered plenty of medals. And he wouldn’t understand, first hand, some of the challenges that come with the disabilities they face.

This is an understanding he didn’t ask for, an empathy that hasn’t come easy. But Mr. Moseman, formerly the assistant executive of the Boy Scouts of America’s Pony Express Council, doesn’t complain about the cost.

“I spent 35 years worrying about membership counts, liability, funding,” he says. “Now, all I want to worry about is the kids.”

Reaching this point required being hit over the head — literally. In February 2006, Mr. Moseman was driving west on Faraon Street when a car leaving the Hy-Vee parking lot collided with his. Because of the angle of impact, his seat belt and airbag didn’t respond, and his head hit the windshield.

At first, he thought he was fine. But after 10 days, he began having headaches, blackouts and episodes of incoherent speech. All of a sudden, he couldn’t alphabetize or add or subtract. Hospital tests revealed the accident had impacted his left temporal lobe — which he’d injured as a child, also, thus making it more vulnerable to serious damage — and it was clear that even after months of therapy he wouldn’t be able to return to the intense 70-hour work weeks his career required.

Mr. Moseman’s wife, Donna, had always worried about what would happen to him when he couldn’t work anymore. Would he be one of those men who retired, then with nothing to do died a few months later? And after the accident came more questions: How would they deal with him no longer driving, just in case he were to forget to turn off the car or take the keys from the ignition? What could they do to keep him from losing his cell phone 30 times a day? And what would life be like for him — always an on-the-go, type-A personality — when once-simple tasks such as creating an agenda now took two days rather than 10 minutes?

Countless friends came to the Mosemans’ aid, and — in a way — so did an autistic teen boy Mrs. Moseman met during a water aerobics class at the Y and thought her husband, with his experience leading swimming lessons, might be able to help. Other special-needs kids crossed his path, as well.

“I think God tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘How many more handicapped, special-needs kids do I have to drop in the pool before you realize that that’s where you ought to be spending your time?’” Mr. Moseman remembers.

Beginning to coach Special Olympics swimmers wasn’t the only volunteer work he took on. He also started working with senior citizens at the Y, becoming certified to lead Silver Sneakers yoga and strength training classes. And although the participants in these classes are at the opposite end of the age spectrum from his Special Olympics kids, he’s found the empathy he’s gained helps in interacting with them both.

“My whole life has been involved with youth, and so the senior dimension is a new dimension,” he says. “But I think the accident better helped me understand disabilities, with kids but also with seniors. The other thing is, being a senior myself at this point, I think it gives me a better perspective in working with them that a younger person, a group leader, probably doesn’t have, because I have a better feel for what they can or can’t do.”

But he also, often, sees the children and seniors he works with exceed expectations — as has been the case with Haley Sevren, a 10-year-old Special Olympics swimmer with difficulties stemming from a stroke she had at birth.

“She can do things we never thought she would, and the difference is not just physical,” Haley’s dad, Bill Sevren, says, adding that among these gains is the confidence to show up early just so she can help “teach” the water aerobics class that takes place before her lesson. “It’s not just the swimming; it’s the whole thing.”

Mr. Moseman, too, has surprised some people.

“He got hit in the head, and I thought we were going to have a very unhappy man,” Mrs. Moseman says. “But that’s not the case. The neat thing is that if Mike kept doing what he was doing, he was doing good things for people without seeing them directly. Now, it’s one on one, and when you actually touch a person, it means something.”

“Everyone regardless of ... situation has special talents, abilities and interests to share with others for the benefit of both,” Mr. Moseman adds. “The greatest gift we can give is our self.”

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.