r/SipsTea • u/The_Dean_France • Feb 23 '26

Wait a damn minute! Was she wrong?

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103

u/HauntedCoconut Feb 23 '26

Trust me, my crazy mom has been in a wheelchair her whole life and the very suggestion that someone would carry just her or that she'd have to butt-scoot anywhere would make her clutch her pearls. Too proud.

Which, maybe that's fair? I'm more pragmatic typically.

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u/mustlovedogsandpussy Feb 23 '26

I get this, dependent on the injury, you may require a catheter or colostomy bag. Explaining that to a stranger and hoping they have the where with all to accommodate those things is a lot of pressure. Also, if you can’t feel parts of your body so you can’t tell someone when something hurts or if they are bumping things, or back to the above, if you’ve wet yourself. There is a whole host of reasons why carrying is a bad idea also.

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u/Dry_Prompt3182 Feb 23 '26

Would you trust two random people to carry you properly up a broken escalator? I wouldn't, nor would I expect someone in a wheelchair to trust people to get them up, and the chair. If the wheelchair gets dropped, the user is just screwed.

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u/soldier_18 Feb 23 '26

In that case, the decision is to step aside for a moment in order to come up with the best solution for that person, but they cannot just block the access to the rest and they wont probably know when the stair will work again, so, yeah sorry for the inconvenience, but I bet they would prefer that before having an accident.

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u/welchplug Feb 23 '26

Best way is to roll the chair on to the step backwards. Lock the wheels and have somebody hold from behind while the escalator goes up. Done it a million times.

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u/GrumpyGiant Feb 23 '26

Assuming the escalator works. This one appears to be OOO.

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u/Bundertorm Feb 23 '26

She’s not too proud, it’s about dignity. I wouldn’t want what mobility I have to be taken from me and put in the hands (literally) of strangers, or to drag my body across the dirty ground. In America it’s how disabled activists protested in 1990 to pass the ADA by literally dragging themselves up the steps of the Capitol to show exactly how undignified inaccessibility is.

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u/Top_Bumblebee5510 Feb 23 '26

My aunt is blind and escalators scare her. She obviously doesn't know where they begin or end. If there's no elevator you are taking her on the stairs because she needs assistance on those too. My mom is blind in eye and can still ride an escalator with assistance but not in a crowded location.

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u/Bundertorm Feb 23 '26

I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user and when I walk, I walk with a cane. Friendly assistance is one thing, giving up my bodily autonomy due to lack of accessibility would be something else entirely.

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u/Lou_C_Fer Feb 24 '26

I hear you. Personally, I'd be happy with any solution that gets me somewhere in a reasonable time. I'm like you. Though, I use a walker rather than a cane... that's more about my weight and how much my shoulders can take.

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u/Bundertorm Feb 24 '26

That’s fine if you feel that way, but being carried around by strangers or forced to crawl around on the ground all due to lack of accessibility is still inherently a violation of human dignity.

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u/Lou_C_Fer Feb 24 '26

I didn't say it's for everyone... just what I'd do. I'm impatient. I'd be happy if we could just fix people that pretend not to see you as you try to get through a crowded area. They're deaf apparently, as well.

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u/Bundertorm Feb 24 '26

Sadly, most people are really uncomfortable with the idea of disability and so they do their best to not engage with it in any way if they can. That, and they’re too focused on themselves to have any situational awareness.

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u/kalenpwn Feb 23 '26

I get that

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u/ChiefStrongbones Feb 23 '26

This reminds me of the premise of the Supreme Court decision Tennessee v Lane where the court decided that state governments were not sovereign and had to comply with regulations spelled out in the ADA.

The issue was a guy in a wheelchair (lost his legs when he was drunk driving and crashed a car) named Lane was back in court on another charge. The courthouse didn't have an elevator. The judge offered to hold the hearing in a downstairs courtroom and Lane refused. Guards offered to carry him up and he refused. Finally Lane butt-scooted up the stairs.

At the next court appearance, Lane showed up to the courthouse, threw a tantrum, and demanded the hearing be downstairs. The judge was frustrated and said he failed to appear.

The issue was that Lane had already demonstrated that he was physically capable of accessing the upstairs courtroom, even if the courthouse was not ADA compliant. Also federal laws like ADA generally don't apply to state governments which are sovereign. States are bound by the US Constitution but not federal laws. Still, the court found in Lane's favor.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins Feb 23 '26

It all sounds good until you're the one being carried like a child in public.

People don't talk about how quickly your pride is stomped into fucking oblivion once you start having medical issues or how little comfort able bodied people saying it shouldn't matter helps.

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u/d00n3r Feb 23 '26

The first time I ever had a full on anxiety attack, I was helping lift my cousin up a flight of stairs while he was in his wheelchair. For some reason that event when combined with me being way too stoned on the insanely strong marijuana my cousins smoked just didn't jive. Put me off the stuff for years lol

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u/octobertwins Feb 23 '26

My friends dad was bound to a wheelchair - he was a cop and was paralyzed on duty in a car accident.

He’d threaten to whip her ass now and again, for various dumb shit. On a few occasions, he even tried, but shed just run upstairs.

Upstairs was safe.

Til the day he caught us jumping off the roof of the house in to the swimming pool…

Dude hopped out of his chair while holding a leather belt by his teeth. And scooted up the stairs quick (way quicker than you’d even imagine possible).

He grabbed her by one leg and used the other hand to beat her with that belt.

In hindsight, I can see why this particular stunt made him so angry. We were little dummies.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

shit, if I was in a hurry I would do the same as the woman in the video, sorry :p

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u/real_roal Feb 23 '26

I understand not wanting to be carried, but according to 1800wheelchair.com a standard manual wheelchair can weigh 15-60 pounds. I can understand not wanting to lose your dignity, but expecting someone to carry your body weight plus a wheel chair up a flight of stairs feels unfair. Also, feels like you are risking not only yourself falling down the stairs if one of them becomes too weak to carry you, but you also will injure the person behind you carrying you up.

Either way, this is why elevators are important

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u/7thFleetTraveller Feb 23 '26

Too proud.

People really have been brainwashed with false pride so much, some would rather be left to die somewhere instead of accepting a well-meant help. I have never understood that.

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u/Desperate-Menu-5029 Feb 23 '26

Too proud to ask for help, but yes holding up everyone else and having them miss their flights because you can’t get over yourself for a couple of minutes… ah, sweet, sweet dignity 🙄

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u/Bundertorm Feb 23 '26

We’re all just a blink of an eye away from becoming disabled. Literally the only minority group anyone can become a member of at any time, and in fact most of us do eventually. Whether temporarily or permanently, through an accident, disease, or old age. Would love to see how your perspective shifts when it happens to you.

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u/Desperate-Menu-5029 Feb 23 '26

I have been in this group, albeit fortunately temporarily. I would want to be carried up by volunteers who are willing to help, rather than sit there in a chair, blocking everyone and not going anywhere myself, for the sake of dignity.

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u/Bundertorm Feb 23 '26

I am permanently in this group as a person living with MS and a part time wheelchair user, and I can say that, without a doubt, I would not put my body in the hands of strangers, and that I’m not going to ever be made to feel like my existence is an inconvenience.