Life In A Wheelchair

I spent a morning in a wheelchair earlier this week as part of a series I’m writing for our Lanzarote Information website.  You can read that post here: Lanzarote Accessibility – A Morning In A Wheelchair. It’s quite factual because of the nature of the site and the needs of people with accessibility problems.

But for this site, I wanted to relay a more personal perspective.

Face it.

You or I could end up without the use of our legs in an instant. A car crash, a bad fall, any number of things could lead us to being either temporarily, or even permanently unable to get around using our primary means of doing so.

My overwhelming sense when negotiating life in a wheelchair was frustration. Stupid things like:

• Having to shout into a shop where I wanted to buy something, to get an assistant out to help me. There was no way I could get into the shop, so in order to get served I had to suffer the ignominy of sitting outside while they got me what I wanted and then brought my change to me.
• Finding so many ramps, specifically put in for disabled users, were simply too steep to get up and down safely, without a helper.
• The instant (but very short lived) look of shock on the faces of people I ran into who I know.
• The feeling of inferiority when you have to look up to talk to anyone.
• An inability to use every day objects like public telephones, because nobody checked to see if you could so from a chair.

I don’t want to go on about it, but I think you get the picture.

So  here’s my main point. I’m 50 years old. I’ve run several businesses, owned lots of business premises, and I even designed my own house.

Until recently, I’d never given a single thought to wheelchair bound people.

I’m actually ashamed to admit that the only time their access has even entered my consciousness was when I had to pay the bills to make a commercial toilet usable in one of our offices, and I’m sure I complained long and hard about that.

I don’t want to turn this into a Road to Damascus moment, but I would like you to do one thing please.

All I would ask you to do is this: If you are ever involved in the construction or design of a building, or even an everyday object, just pause for a moment and consider how someone in a wheelchair could use or interact with it.

Because that someone could be you.