Hi,
This story is about my friend "Snow". That's an old nickname he had from before his accident. I don't know why. It stuck to him tho, partly because he's a mysterious guy and partly because few people know his real name. He's the gruff type and physically impressive. A hulk. He must have stood a couple inches over six feet tall. His hands are twice as big as mine. He doesn't talk much and has almost no facial expression. He definitely doesn't look like someone into touchy feely stuff. He never talks about his accident. He became a high paraplegic paraplegic. He still has control over his upper chest muscles (pectorals) and arms, but he completely lost everything below that.
Last year Snow decided he wanted to keep driving his car on his own. That's a common goal among wheelchair users. It's like the holy grail of the quest for autonomy. That's not an easy thing to do. Snow his using a lightweight manual wheelchair, but it's still at least 20 pounds. To get in his car, he has to first transfer from his wheelchair to the driver's seat. Then, he has to deassemble his wheelchair and pass it over himself to his right side where the passenger seat would normally be (The passenger seat is removed and replaced by boxes or racks to hold the wheelchair parts in adapted cars). He has to do the opposite to get out of his car. All that with only his arms. He can't even use his trunk for balance. Most of his body feels like dead weight he has to slug around. You don't develop the skills required to do this in a single day.
It took Snow a year to be able to do it. His arms, pectorals and shoulders are incredibly muscular now. He spent a lot of time at the gym working on them. It cost him over a thousand dollars to have manual commands installed in his car and have the passenger seat replaced by a holding rack for his wheelchair. That's a lot of money for him, he used to be a construction worker but has been without work since his accident.
Last monday was the day he had been working toward during that year. For the first time he used his car by himself, alone, without someone accompanying him just in case he ran into trouble. No more safety nets. He went to the grocery store to get his own groceries on his own. He can tie 3-4 grocery bags to the rear of his chair without problems. Everything went fine until he got back to his car after his shopping was over.
Someone had parked just a little over a feet away from his car. It was legal for that person to have done that. She was a handicapped parking placard owner. But she was blocking Snow's access to his car. He couldn't get in. Wheelchair users can't squeeze themselves between cars. All the efforts and investment he put in regaining his autonomy were of no use in that situation. He waited for a while hoping the blocking car owner would not be long but eventually had to go inside the shopping mall, find a security guard and ask him to back his car for him. Byebye autonomy.
That's something that happens often to wheelchair users in the handicapped parking spots. Snow had been warned about this. He was just not expecting it would happen to him on the first day he tried to use his car alone.
He did something out of character for him after that incident. He said something about it. In short, he said he learned to accept the fact he had lost the ability to walk because that was something he had received for free in life. But the ability to use his car now that he was a para was something he had worked hard to earn and having it taken away from him that way was not something he could learn to accept.
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It's a great thing that people with all kinds of disabilities are granted access to the handicapped parking spots. Pregnant women in their third semesters have their own spots over here now, but if they did not I would support their right to use the handicapped parking spots too.
It would be even greater tho if all handicapped parking users would remember the symbol representing a wheelchair user on their placard. Wheelchair users now represent less than 10% of handicapped parking placard owners. With the aging population, we're gonna become even more of a minority in the coming years. That means more and more handicapped parking users will have no idea of the needs of wheelchair users. Just in case you are one, I'd like you to please pay attention to the three following things:
1) Check for a sticker on the other vehicles in the handicapped parking spots. Many wheelchair users have started putting them on their vehicle to identify themselves and specify their needs for space on the side of their vehicles.
2) If you're parking next to a minivan, leave a six feet space next to the large side door in case that van has an access ramp inside. If you leave less space, the van owner might not be able to lower his access ramp and have access to his vehicle. Some electric wheelchair users are sometimes using their vehicle on their own too.
3) Check inside the cars next to yours to see if the passenger seat has been removed and replaced by a box or rack. If that's the case, please park your car far enough from that vehicle to allow for the driver's side door to be fully opened.
I hope this post didn't sound too cheesy, accusatory or negative. After we heard Snow tell us about what had happened to him, me and a of couple friends decided to write about it in the forums we visit. Snow is the gruff type. Comforting him is not an easy task. If you try to hug him, you risk getting bruised seriously. Telling his story is a much safer way to do something for him.
Thanks for reading all this.
This story is about my friend "Snow". That's an old nickname he had from before his accident. I don't know why. It stuck to him tho, partly because he's a mysterious guy and partly because few people know his real name. He's the gruff type and physically impressive. A hulk. He must have stood a couple inches over six feet tall. His hands are twice as big as mine. He doesn't talk much and has almost no facial expression. He definitely doesn't look like someone into touchy feely stuff. He never talks about his accident. He became a high paraplegic paraplegic. He still has control over his upper chest muscles (pectorals) and arms, but he completely lost everything below that.
Last year Snow decided he wanted to keep driving his car on his own. That's a common goal among wheelchair users. It's like the holy grail of the quest for autonomy. That's not an easy thing to do. Snow his using a lightweight manual wheelchair, but it's still at least 20 pounds. To get in his car, he has to first transfer from his wheelchair to the driver's seat. Then, he has to deassemble his wheelchair and pass it over himself to his right side where the passenger seat would normally be (The passenger seat is removed and replaced by boxes or racks to hold the wheelchair parts in adapted cars). He has to do the opposite to get out of his car. All that with only his arms. He can't even use his trunk for balance. Most of his body feels like dead weight he has to slug around. You don't develop the skills required to do this in a single day.
It took Snow a year to be able to do it. His arms, pectorals and shoulders are incredibly muscular now. He spent a lot of time at the gym working on them. It cost him over a thousand dollars to have manual commands installed in his car and have the passenger seat replaced by a holding rack for his wheelchair. That's a lot of money for him, he used to be a construction worker but has been without work since his accident.
Last monday was the day he had been working toward during that year. For the first time he used his car by himself, alone, without someone accompanying him just in case he ran into trouble. No more safety nets. He went to the grocery store to get his own groceries on his own. He can tie 3-4 grocery bags to the rear of his chair without problems. Everything went fine until he got back to his car after his shopping was over.
Someone had parked just a little over a feet away from his car. It was legal for that person to have done that. She was a handicapped parking placard owner. But she was blocking Snow's access to his car. He couldn't get in. Wheelchair users can't squeeze themselves between cars. All the efforts and investment he put in regaining his autonomy were of no use in that situation. He waited for a while hoping the blocking car owner would not be long but eventually had to go inside the shopping mall, find a security guard and ask him to back his car for him. Byebye autonomy.
That's something that happens often to wheelchair users in the handicapped parking spots. Snow had been warned about this. He was just not expecting it would happen to him on the first day he tried to use his car alone.
He did something out of character for him after that incident. He said something about it. In short, he said he learned to accept the fact he had lost the ability to walk because that was something he had received for free in life. But the ability to use his car now that he was a para was something he had worked hard to earn and having it taken away from him that way was not something he could learn to accept.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's a great thing that people with all kinds of disabilities are granted access to the handicapped parking spots. Pregnant women in their third semesters have their own spots over here now, but if they did not I would support their right to use the handicapped parking spots too.
It would be even greater tho if all handicapped parking users would remember the symbol representing a wheelchair user on their placard. Wheelchair users now represent less than 10% of handicapped parking placard owners. With the aging population, we're gonna become even more of a minority in the coming years. That means more and more handicapped parking users will have no idea of the needs of wheelchair users. Just in case you are one, I'd like you to please pay attention to the three following things:
1) Check for a sticker on the other vehicles in the handicapped parking spots. Many wheelchair users have started putting them on their vehicle to identify themselves and specify their needs for space on the side of their vehicles.
2) If you're parking next to a minivan, leave a six feet space next to the large side door in case that van has an access ramp inside. If you leave less space, the van owner might not be able to lower his access ramp and have access to his vehicle. Some electric wheelchair users are sometimes using their vehicle on their own too.
3) Check inside the cars next to yours to see if the passenger seat has been removed and replaced by a box or rack. If that's the case, please park your car far enough from that vehicle to allow for the driver's side door to be fully opened.
I hope this post didn't sound too cheesy, accusatory or negative. After we heard Snow tell us about what had happened to him, me and a of couple friends decided to write about it in the forums we visit. Snow is the gruff type. Comforting him is not an easy task. If you try to hug him, you risk getting bruised seriously. Telling his story is a much safer way to do something for him.
Thanks for reading all this.
