Yesterday I came across the story of a recently disabled 56 year old man (double leg amputee) who accidently drove his electric wheelchair off the curb and tipped over into the road, this caused one of his stumps to start bleeding. Police arrived at the scene and.... called the fire and rescue service to remove the wheelchair off him!
Seriously! They actually waited for the fire brigade to attend just to lift his wheelchair. You couldn't make this up. Most women carers can lift an electric wheelchair, many of these are small and some quite old themselves. yet two of the home offices finest obviously couldn't manage it.
To put this into perspective. Last year I came across an elderly disabled man on his electric buggy, he'd driven onto grass to get around the flooded pavement. He hadn't realised the grass was also soaking. His buggy had sunk right in. I pulled and pushed it out about 10-20 yards around the flooded area back onto the pavement.
Now these buggies are heavier than a simple electric wheelchair, they have a bigger battery and lights ect. I managed it, even though I have back and knee problems and a number of other health issues, and I'm 68 years old. Oh yes, and I managed that with the disabled man still sitting on the bloody thing, not just moving an empty chair..
Those bobbies should be ashamed of themselves calling the fire brigade just for that. Bring back the good old British bobbie, George Dixon of Dock Green would have lifted the wheelchair up sorted out the blokes bleeding, and done it all without a song and dance. But then those were real policemen in those days, no radios, no bodycameras, no stab vests, no tazers, no pepper spray, no telescopic batons, just a good old wooden truncheon and his fists. But then men were men then.....
