Disabled Reality

I posted this on Facebook and got a lot of responses and so am posting it here too:

- I had to push a wheelchair in many different terrains and weather. It wasn't easy to do in: the snow, mud, on cobblestones, on ice, up/down mountains, on crowded sidewalks, over pot-holes, etc.

- Add to that pushing the wheelchair with one hand and pushing a shopping cart with the other and having to deal with: snow, mud, ice outside the store; small aisles, corners, crowds of people inside the store.

-- It wasn't just in stores, but in busy, crowded airports. I pushed a wheelchair with 1 hand and a fully loaded luggage cart with the other to/from parking lots, from one terminal to another terminal (most of the time by walking and a few times by taking an airport monorail) dealing with crowds of people pushing and shoving.

- Through all of this the vast majority of people just stood by, made jokes or tried to push their way through rather than help. They include German policemen in Munich laughing as the wheelchair got stuck in a snow bank while trying to cross the street and onlookers just standing by watching, Airport Employees (especially those whose sole job is to help the disabled) at London Heathrow abandoning throngs of disabled (young and old) in a dimly-light , smelly 3rd World looking basement and then going on break and never coming back. To regular people who hold the door for others and when they see you coming with a wheelchair make a point to close it on you a second before you reach the door. To bus drivers at Disney World who are there to transport you to/from your resort hotel to the attractions and refuse to open the wheelchair accessible door so you can get on because they are too lazy to take half a minute to help.

- My list could go on and on. The fact is that most of people around the world like to think they are so-evolved and would help, but when it comes down to it the vast majority actually go out of their way to not help. I have seen it first-hand in nearly every US State and every country I have been to.