An article by Simon Minty
DISABILITY NOW ARTICLE 2007
This is meant to be a topical article so I thought I could write about mango’s and pineapple’s but then I thought “R”, have I forgotten something?
In last month’s Disability Now, I wrote about my recent trip to China where amongst other things, I had discussed the Paralympics with Chinese people. After travelling around China on a mobility scooter, I have realised the first event for wheelchair racers will be getting to the Olympic venue from their hotel – dropped kerbs are not common place. Maybe this could be a new demonstration sport, better named, the “obstacle race”. Of course obstacle, egg and spoon and sack races are left to school sports days and thankfully the Paralympics has shaken off the therapeutic activity notion and moved on to serious athletics. No longer do ignorant people think wheelchair racing is unfair, believing its all down to how fast the person pushing can run.
The bit that always confuses me with the Paralympics is the classification of impairments. Even for people with my condition, being restricted growth or dwarfism, we have our own three sub-categories. These have been developed by the Dwarf Athletic Association of the United Kingdom. Fantastic organisation that it is, they didn’t think through the acronym, when read out aloud, DAAUK. I tend to refrain from using abbreviations which make me appear that I am a member of club of “dorks”.
Maybe I should set up my own club of dorks though. Recently I have been made to look like a dork on two occasions. During my trip, I had a 7 hour layover at Hong Kong Airport. Trying to get some sleep, I managed to grab two seats in the packed airport lounge. As I dozed off I was constantly troubled by the buzzing of a floor cleaner…until I realised it was the chap next to me snoring. I did eventually doze off and woke four hours later dazed and confused. I looked around and there was no one. 200 people had disappeared. As I got up, I noticed the seating area had been cordoned off with red “Danger” tape and floor signs. Goodness knows what threat I posed!
After two hours of hassle at the check in where the airport authority refused me permission to drive my scooter to the gate, and me refusing to give it up, the compromise reached was a security official pushing 125 kilos of me and my “disabled” (turned off) scooter. Once out of eyesight of the officials, I offered to turn it on but the security man refused. A hundred metres later as his breathing got heavier and he started stumbling, he asked me to turn it on. So we proceeded with me pretending not to accelerate and him seemingly pushing a deadweight with just two fingers resting on the back of my seat. I gave him a mango to say thank you.