Transport Horrors in 'Disability Bitch Proved Right' Shocker
I, lilwatchergirl, of 'ever-determined to stay active and be productive' fame, am spending this week in bed. This is because I am currently incapable of moving my head without quite a large amount of pain - and I'm not, on the whole, unused to pain. I have whiplash, which is not a particularly fun experience at the best of times. (Neither is persuading doctors to take your injuries seriously when you're already disabled, something I have noticed often in the past. I have seen three doctors this week; one was much more interested in my television than dealing with my mild concussion and serious pain in the neck - "Turn it on so I can see the quality" - and two were much more interested in why I was using the wheelchair than the fact that I fell out of it. But I digress.)
The story behind my injuries (and enusing terrified refusal to leave the house) is, of course, wheelchair related. It seems that everything that makes my life difficult at the moment is about lack of access, or unsuitable wheelchairs, or people who won't help me to get a better wheelchair, or people who would rather I didn't use the wheelchair, or people who refuse to accommodate the wheelchair - well, you get the idea. The event in question happened on Thursday, when I was being virtuous and going swimming (but there's no need to feel too sorry for me - I don't go very often, and I may never attempt to go again after this week's adventure). I had it all planned out: it was one of my 'off days' from work, PA was available for three hours, and a nice, theoretically fully-accessible local bus goes from outside my door to the nearest swimming pool. Easy? You would think.
The theoretically fully-accessible local bus in question was the source of my little problem. On this particular bus route, and several others in the area, most of the buses are ancient and have had ramps fitted onto them only recently - and these ramps are not well designed. Marvin ('leccy wheelchair) usually manages to creak his way up them, although he does sometimes get stuck (always an embarrassing situation, what with the crowds of lovely passengers that then jump into ooh look, a poor cripple to help, how exciting action, grabbing hold of the chair and pulling it up, leaving me looking just a tad stupid. I look even stupider when I also fail to reverse into the wheelchair space, because I have no coordination and am a big bumbling elephant. "Mummy, why doesn't that lady know how to make her wheelchair go?") But on this fateful occasion, Marvin didn't make it. We got half-way up the ramp, hit the 'lip' at the top that joins it to the floor of the bus, and then Marvin and I toppled backwards. That's 110 kilos falling backwards, if you add the wheelchair's considerable weight to my own. No great surprise, then, that I hit the floor extremely hard, landing on my head. Very fortunately for me, Marvin landed quite a distance away. He's slow and he complains a lot, but that chair does look out for my best interests.
During the ten-minute-long aftermath of this incident, I lay on the floor trying to work out where my feet were while fifteen passengers (but no sign of the bus driver, of course) crowded around to see if I was OK. (The dear lady who offered to lift me onto the bus got a rather curt response.) Then we went home. Instead of enabling me to be all healthy and sporty and virtuous, my PA spent her three hours enabling my compulsive tea-and-sitcom habit. I have since spent the next few days considering such questions as: Shouldn't transport that's advertised as being accessible actually be accessible? Who are buses meant for, anyway? Is Disability Bitch right (as much as I hate to entertain that notion) when she tells me in her recent article on disability and sport that it's a bit stupid to make valiant efforts to exercise when my body demands tea, chocolate, the telly and the sofa? And does anyone else have similar horror stories about Access Gone Wrong? I'd be much cheered if you'd share them with me. Until then I'll be getting back to daytime television, those large bars of Green and Black's fair trade chocolate that are so lovely, and the permanently-seated situation that I find so much safer than attempting to leave my - ironically, now accessible - house. 'Til next time, Ouchie friends.
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Comments
Um, there's the one in which I get on a rush hour train and it's full and there are drunk men sitting in the priority seats who I am loathe to tackle.
So I sit in first class, anticipating that after the first stop in five minutes time, lots of people will get off and I can sit in standard.
It is a very enlightened train company and their policy actually states that in the event of standard class being full, crips can sit in first.
Except they forgot to tell the ticket inspector who claims I need to pay for a first class upgrade.
I explain the situation. He says I need to pay the upgrade anyway.
I say can he do anything about the drunk blokes in the priority seats?
He says he is not authorised to ask them to move.
We have a pointed conversation about how interesting it is that he is authorised to make a cripple stand up all the way to Brighton, but not to ask antisocial drunk men to move from seats in which they are not supposed to sit.
He said I should talk to the conductor. Who was at the other end of the train.
Unfortunately we couldn't continue the conversation because someone else gave me their seat. Tho I did write to the company concerned and congratulate them on their policy of making disabled people stand up but not drunk people.
All the policies in all the world are fine until they forget to tell their staff.
I don't get a mention? Even though I watched over you in your concussed state? I'm disappointed...
Addendum to entry: Lisy Babe watched over me, very efficiently, in my concussed state.
My best friend is blind, so when traveling on the bus, she always asks the driver to announce when they reach her stop. Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen.
On time she ended up getting off at wrong stops three times in a row, 'cos three different drivers forget to alert her when they reached the stop. She would have missed it a fourth time if the passenger next to her hadn't warned her.