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Home / Thoughts / Falling off - Have a laugh

Falling off - Have a laugh

Written by Sean on Sunday, June 3, 2007

Claire was telling me about being dumped in public by her wheelchair for the first time today. And I was thinking back to all those times that it happened to me. Some of them are really vivid in my mind. I thought that y’all might be amused by these stories, so, there you go.

Lemme see. First time I fell off was on the main street, downtown of a big Canadian city, front casters caught in tram tracks. That was a nose dive. Embarassing because I hadn’t been wheeling long at all. And because a guy screeched his tyres, stopped his car (in full traffic), ran out, grabbed me by the armpits and dumped me back in my chair before I had a chance to know what had happened! By the time I got presence of mind ot thank him, he was driving away already!

Second time it happened, I was flipped backwards, entering in a mall. I grabbed one door and swung the other, but someone came behind me and “helped” by opening the door. Hence I encountered much less resistance, and my arm’s weight and inertia threw my weight back, I flipped back, landed on my back while my chair skittered away happily. The swine that helped with the door didn’t stick around to help retrieve the chair though. Ha!

The third time, I was on a dance floor with Lolly (whom you may remember reading about on this site, a double amputee due to diabetes, who died in the late 90’s :( ). We were having fun, she was moving her stumps around, saying “You don’t know how many devs are in the room, let’s give ‘em en eyefull”. It was a “60’s night”, and the DJ played “The Wanderer”. And on the “went around and round and round and round”, I got cocky and was going in circles, in a wheelie, and I tried to do it one handed. ha! WHAM, on my back. Lolly nearly peed her pants she was laughing so hard. I was laughing as well. The bouncer came and retrieved me and suggested we might want to get off the dance floor! Ha!

I must have fallen a few more times, but I don’t recall exactly.

Then in the middle of winter, in the Midwest, I was wheeling from one place to the other, in a rush, fighting bitter cold wind, after a snow fall. There was slush on the ground, making it hard to push. I had to pop wheelies and jump forward and hop and bounce through it all. I didn’t realise that the nut holding my axle sleeve to the frame had come loose. And at one point, I popped a wheelie and the wheel fell off, and I landed in the slush. Gee that was cold. And I was an hour away from home. Urgh.

I also remember after arriving here, we went to a party at a conference my partner was attending. On the dance floor, someone had spilled their drink. I didn’t know. Dancing like the devil, popping wheelies, my wheel lost traction due to the liquid on the floor. ZIIIIIIIP. WHAM!! On my back. I carried on dancing on my butt, laughing, having a good time. my partner was laughing at me. We were both laughing even harder because people around us were *horrified* that instead of helping me, she was laughing at me. This is a good memory of the “early days”.

Well, there you go, you know a few of my most embarassing wheeling moments :)

Tags: Wheelchair, Fall, Story, Snow, Slush, Dance, Laugh