The celebrity wheel chair chalange

[PurplySparkleyJoey]

Did any one see the Celbrity whee chair chalange on C4 last night at 9o'Clock??
I thought it was a really good program. basicly it was Gabbi roslin, Some sooooper model & that comedian from never mind the buzzman's dangly bitsz (Shawn i think?) Any way! They were all put in a manual rigid framed wheel chair (a luxuary chair/sports chair) and they were told to get from Edenbrougher to London in 1 day. With in that day they had to do diffrent things, one went to see a music consert, one climbed a hill & gabbi did something else i cant remember .. they all had to go on plains, trains, bus's & taxi's .. stay in hotels and all that normal stuff.
They had there legs lightly strapped to there chair & they wernt aloud to use them at all during the day.

The challanges they faced were just normal daily living stuff that disabled people face every day (or for us once a month when we can get out ) They all had tears at some point dew to frustrations & insecuritys & nob head people who are rude or over kind.

I think it showed, for some people who wouldnt have any idea what its like to sit in a chair, that life isnt just the same sitting down .. its a whole new life style.
One of them wanted a coffee from starbucks .. only she couldnt get in, it honestly looked like it had never ever entered her head that she might not be able to access a place like that .. shops yer, but not some where to drink.

I would be intrested to hear other people experances of useing a chair? Or what they thought of the program.

Lots of love .. Jo xx

P.S .. if any one would like to donate to my wheel chair fund, your more than welcome

[freewheeler]

I saw the prog, and thought it pretty good. Shame they had to use celebritied though (presumably able-bods wouldn't watch otherwise? The title was also unfortunate, suggesting that it was like a gameshow to be in a wheelchair? But once it started, I realised it wasn't so patronising, and was trying to get a realistic picture of life in a chair.

However, several factors made the show not as realistic as it could have been.
I reckon the celebs got better treatment by the able-b's that they encountered because:
a: sometimes they would be recognised
b: the camera was not hidden, so able-b's knew they were being filmed
c: the celeb's were travelling with 2 other peopl (camera man + helper). In my experience, 9 times out of ten, when I'm with other people, esp. if they are able-b's, I get muc better treatment (except for the patronising, that goes up when I'm being pushed about by able-b's).

Also, they should have spent a little more time on the buses, because then they could have shown the sometimes daily occurence of not being allowed on the wheelchair accessible bus and all the able-b's at the same stop are. Reason, the driver does not recognise you as a human being or is too lazy to press a few buttons. You are left behind, like excess baggage.

They could have shown the bus ramp breaking down as you get on, therefore the bus is grounded until the ramp is fixed (hours), and the able-b passengers having a go at you because if it wasn't for you, the ramp would not have been used, so it couldn't have broken and stranded everybody.

They should have shown the verbal and physical abuse that is dished out to us, daily.
Th taunts about being crap in bed, not being able to "do it".
The hat being ripped off an thrown up the stairs.
The refusing to take you seriously, and laughing in your face as you struggle up a steep slope for the bus.

Those are my experiences, and those of my w/ch using friends. They should have shown some of that, was it cleaned up to protect people from reality and mis-labeled to pull in the viewers?

Maybe, I have heard that a channel 4 "insider" says these kind of programs are heavily manipulated, even though they claim to show it "the way it is".

Despite all it's shortcomings though, it was the first, so hopefully there'll be more to follow, and they will be improved?? The summary of her experience by the model (I think? The woman with the pony-tail? Not Gaby, the other one) was a very good ending. Asexual (expected to be anyway), isolated, excluded, patronised etc. Yup, that's pretty muc it.

[PurplySparkleyJoey]

Yer, i have to agree ... things could/should have been done diffrently ... i think the basic idea was to just give people a little kick up the ass .. just to show people that life doesnt go on just sitting down. And to be honest i think it did that. I know that they got an easy ride ... BUT there easy ride (as wheel chair users would see it) will have shocked most Abled B people. They dont think, when they walk up stairs, 'this isnt wheel chair assessable' they just dont think at all.
Do you see what i mean? .. im not getting this accross very well am i!!

Hey hooooooooooo ;D ;D ;D

[freewheeler]

I understand what you're saying Jo, they don't think at all.

For instance, I'll be waiting for a bus, by the bus stop, and a car will pull up and park right in front of me, in the bus lane. Thus making it impossible for the bus to pull in right up to the kerb (and so eject the wheelchair ramp). Without the ramp (and the kerb, which reduces the height which you have to "jump" to get on the bus), it's difficult and downright dangerous for me to get on the bus.
In the past, I've pushed up to the car in question, and politely explained the problem to the driver. The response is either "f.uck off!", laughing in my face, or "I'll only be 5 min" (yeh? well it only takes 2min for the bus to arrive, park, load up and be off again without me on board. dur )

In desperation (and raging like a mad woman) I let the tyre down on a car one day. I wa petrified that the driver would come up behind me and kick me hard in the back or ruin my beautiful, faithful chair), but I did it all the same. Guess what? The pillock drove of on it! I'm thinking I need to make a simple, cheap device that I can screw on to the valve of the tyre and leave it to do it's work. Coz the longer I sit by a car, fiddling wth the valve/s, the more likely I get caught and get my chair busted.

Anyone got a bright idea?


(What I do is, roll up to the bus facing the back doors, do a wheelie and get my foot bar resting on the edge of the on/off platform .

Then with one hand on the hand-rails (on the back doors, I use London buses, other ones may not have these rails, which are bloody handy for w/ch users) I flip the front end of my chair up until the front wheels are on the platform.

Finally, I put both hands on the hand-rails and (using the powerful arm/shoulder muscles that manual w/ch users have) pull myself, and the back wheels of the chair up onto the bus.

So I can get on a London bus parked in the road, and without a ramp extended. But if I get one wheelie or flip wrong, if I flip just a little too much, then I'm over backwards.
Head in the gutter and legs flailing around in the air. Sounds funny, but it's not, and I'm lucky not to have cracked my head open. It's also downright embarassing, and does nothing for your st. cred, or your efforts to pull a girl.

Being picked up and hauled onto the bus like a piece of furniture by strangers does nothing for your confidence either. Too many strangers rush to help (o.k fair enough, their hearts are in the right place, and I can't very well get up again by myself), but do not sto to ask how to pick me up.
Very often, they get it wrong and end up damaging my chair, dropping me and the chair, or probably the worse, they grab me around my chest, so I hauled onto the bus by my tits!(ow! (yeh, I dress boyishly, but have they never seen a dyke before? ) If they would stop and ask first, I could show them where to put their hands, and where NOT to.

Though there are some peole who realise I'm female., and so are eager to help so thatthey can touch me in intimate places (usually dirty men). This has happened to me seveal times in only a few months.

Any one else had a similar experience? What can we do to stop people who pretend to be helping but are actually violating our bodies? I've asked santa for a stun-gun this Christmas, reckon it might just do the trick!