Walked a mile in a friends shoes today

[barnburner]

Well, more like in one of his mobility chairs. He needed someone to go pick it up and bring it back on the bus.

 

Of course I couldnt pass up being pampered for this.

 

I have operated some chairs like this in the past but usually for very very short amounts of time. This day was a first for me getting a chair onto the bus, maneuvering it into place to be secured, getting through the tight space that is between the wheels getting on and off the bus on that what seems like now a very narrow ramp lol.

My skills at this may not have been the best but no toes were devoured on this day.

It might also help a little to know some details about the chair you are using, I didnt know where the secure points were on the thing but my friend obviously knew.

 

It gave me a new respect for what their users and the drivers go through when a wheelchair needs to get on a bus.

 

There was a feeling of guilt though, I felt a little like a fraud, I have no business being in a chair and I have seen in recent years people who dont need them using them to get all around town. But, I do hope I never need one of those chairs if I make it to old age.

 

I didnt shy away from bringing plenty of soda with me so I came back a bit wet. We had a little over an hour to wait for the bus back home so we had some delicious burgers near the bus stop.

[feralfreak]

nothing to feel bad about, not a fraud, you were just moving it for her, and if you were asked i suspect you would have said as much, you probably couldnt have moved it without sitting it if it has a dead man switch.

[willnotwill]

I had to go retrieve my son's power chair from the Metro station (he had been taken to the hospital from there).   I had to get it from the station to my truck in the parking lot and found that there's just no practical way to move the thing rather than sitting in it and driving it.

[Little Sherri]

This is interesting - it would give you insight into what someone else's life is like. My wife used to work as an EA for disabled students in a past life, and she helped secure the chairs onto school busses with lifts, etc - it can be quite the process. 

My younger daughter played wheelchair basketball a few weeks ago at school, which I thought was clever - I was amazed that they have enough wheelchairs to do that, but apparently they do - I guess they'd need 10? Anyway, it gave them some insight into what it would feel like to be handicapped, and, it also put them all on equal footing (so to speak - equal 'wheeling'?). Her class has one disabled child in it, and a couple of the others do as well, so, for that day, everyone in the class was playing the same game. 

[barnburner]

On 6/5/2023 at 9:01 AM, willnotwill said:

I had to go retrieve my son's power chair from the Metro station (he had been taken to the hospital from there).   I had to get it from the station to my truck in the parking lot and found that there's just no practical way to move the thing rather than sitting in it and driving it.

Some of these power chairs have lock levers near the main wheels where you can unlock them and be able to push them, but if you parked far from the station entrance, it wouldnt be fun to push it all the way, but if you were to have had a dead battery, thats pretty much all you can do.

[willnotwill]

16 hours ago, barnburner said:

Some of these power chairs have lock levers near the main wheels where you can unlock them and be able to push them, but if you parked far from the station entrance, it wouldnt be fun to push it all the way, but if you were to have had a dead battery, thats pretty much all you can do.

Yeah, I unlocked the wheels when I was pushing it up the ramps into the bed of my truck.   The problem with moving it any distance (other than the effort) is that you can't really steer it well pushing on the back.     I tried that first.   Then I tried just walking beside it working the joystick and then finally gave up and sat in it.

[barnburner]

Got a pic from that day.

10 hours ago, willnotwill said:

Yeah, I unlocked the wheels when I was pushing it up the ramps into the bed of my truck.   The problem with moving it any distance (other than the effort) is that you can't really steer it well pushing on the back.     I tried that first.   Then I tried just walking beside it working the joystick and then finally gave up and sat in it.

Yes, not fun to steer those things when pushing them.

 

I had a friend who had a broken chair that got fried by the power outlet in the wall, He couldnt walk far so he stayed in his chair, but he still wanted to go outside and smoke, I pushed him a few times, a few days later, he would go to the hospital and never set foot in his apartment again, He died back in January of this year.

Where the elevators let us off at the main entry floor of the building, there was a ramp we had to traverse up to get to the main front door entry area, not fun, and then coming back in going down that thing, one would think that would be a breeze, but heavy chair plus heavy guy in the chair which could have gotten away from me behind it.

[willnotwill]

The fun part was that I don't have one of those mounts/lifts thing on my truck, so I had to push it up a pair of ramps into the bed of my pickup.   Fortunately, I was able to grab a couple of guys who were in the parking garage to help me do it.   When I got over to the hospital where he was staying, I very carefully backed the thing down the ramps.

By then I was getting the hang of driving the thing and avoided looking like I needed to be written up for DUI.