Prepping for disabled mobility

Bill Masen - September 11, 2021

Couple of times over the years I’ve worked with assorted folks with various disabilities, and call me crazy but I like to sniff around to try and find gear or stuff that will improve their lot AND / OR more importantly improve their MOBILITY.

I keep finding interesting designs for gear and snippets that could prove useful.

Here is a tiny fraction FYI

From ABLE magazine a selection of alll terrain wheel chair vehicles.

https://ablemagazine.co.uk/terrain-wheelchairs-wild-things/

I really like the TREKINETIC

Home – Trekinetic – Mk3 Draft

I have even seen a few on the moors here in the UK miles from anywhere and on the most dreadful of tracks, some folks wont let anything stop them.  A couple of them carried their own camping gear with them, truly impressive.

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As someone who has been forced to live in a wheelchair myself over the past few years, off-roading is a difficult thing to deal with. There is an attachment that people can add to their normal wheelchairs which lifts up their front two casters and places a much larger single wheel in the front making it into a trike. I have heard it makes a huge difference and allows you to go off road or through grass much easier than a normal wheelchair is capable of.

I hope that none of you ever have to deal with or experience what I am going through, but an injury can happen to anyone at anytime and throw their life upside down. Having people like you Bill, who help out those disabled and injured to live more fulfilling lives, really means the world to us. Keep up the great work!

 

There are many great adaptations that wheel chair users can adopt to make their chairs more useful such as twin wheeling each side of the chair.

Lesser but equally useful things like PUNCTURE PROOF TYRES can gave chair users ( I hate the word disabled)   far more confidence in venturing off the ttarmac.

https://www.greentyre.co.uk/

I,ve seen chairs fitted with CB radios, gun carriers, PV panels etc, these people say ” Never say never”

 

Everyone in a wheelchair MUST carry a spare inner tube, pump, and know how to replace them. I’ve gotten a few flats at sub optimal times and it’s either go straight home or to a bike repair shop, or fix it yourself. 

Those puncture proof tires, or they even have solid rubber tires are a good prep to have.

If you have any ideas on how to carry a gun in a wheelchair, I’d love for your advice. So far I’ve done everything I can think of to conceal carry and I just can’t come up with a solution. Nothing in the waistband is possible because of the angle I’m sitting at. I can’t do a shoulder holster because I need my arms to push my chair around. And there just isn’t any good hiding places around the frame of my chair. The best solution I can think about is getting a smaller gun and putting it into a cargo pocket on the side of my thigh.

 

All the guns I have seen were small 22 Semis or Wheel guns, the users tended to wear cargo pants with leg pockets, and the side arms were in those leg pockets, though one dude simply had a small pistol tucked down the side of his seat cushion, And if my aging mind has not totally failed someone else kept one in a fanny pack ?

 

I believe the Green Tyre Co tyres are available now in the US according to their UK website.  Over here many mountain bikers use em because they are so damn tough.

 

A fanny pack might work… Thanks for sharing your ideas. I need to buy a smaller pistol and play around with where I can carry it. Just too hard to carry a full sized one.

 

A small gun you are comfortable with will be far more use than the big gun you left at home cos its to big and uncomfortable to carry.

At the ranges you are likely to be harrased a .22LR should do the role, both as a very effective deterrent, and if you are a decent shot a reasonably effective PDW.  We all have our our own preferences, but the prepper in me likes simplicity and reliability, so a small wheelgun like the Ruger Bearcat shopkeeper would be my first choice. BUT I’m not going to debate gun choice 🙂

 

May I ask a question ? if it appears offensive please delete this post, But I had read that some chair users in US cities had fitted discreet rear view mirrors to their chairs to enable to see if anyone was sneaking up behind them.  Have you heard of this at all?

 

Oh wait, my wife just showed me this she saw on E bay. Now that is a darn good aide to situational awareness, I like that.

 

Not offensive at all! I may have seen one person have a mirror like that, but it’s not something I would use. 

I am very grateful and blessed to have a lower injury and to have full control over my torso and arms. I can see the mirror being used more for those unable to move their torso and arms and it will allow them to look around better without having to pivot their entire chair. Probably more for accessibility than situational awareness, but good thinking on other uses for things!

 

Someone here i’m chatting with tonight says they read a piece in some lifestyle magazine that a chair user in a high crime part of Michegan has had a kevlar back rest and side panels fitted to their chair, supposedly able to stop pistol calibre rounds!!!

 

Have you heard of eSight for the visually impaired? Such impairment takes many forms.  My husband has advanced macular degeneration.  We got him an eSight device, and it actually enabled him to “see” a good many things, even watch TV.  We were working together on helping him “train” his eyes to use another part of the retina for focus.  It takes a lot of want-to and dedicated practice to use the device.

Husband is very adapted to his condition and highly functional, and decided not to do the considerable work of re-learning how to read, etc. He is pretty advanced in age too and doesn’t need such a device to, say, hold down a job.  He maintains a high level of activity (today he was using the tractor to move monster rocks out of the way of an upcoming stump-grinding project) due to years of visual decline and concurrent adaptation.

The device is very expensive.  But it is the real deal.

 

Good evening Gideon.

The times have changed much so can’t offer suggestions now.

We used to have 6 veterans at my DAV chapter who were wheelchair users. Not by coincidence, all were hurt in Special Forces units in Vietnam.  

They were armed with safety factored in.

Again, times have changed. Otherwise I’d give you the DAV chapters’ contact in Colorado with person to brief you in detail.

 

Good evening Gideon.

The times have changed much so can’t offer suggestions now.

We used to have 6 veterans at my DAV chapter who were wheelchair users. Not by coincidence, all were hurt in Special Forces units in Vietnam.  

They were armed with safety factored in.

Again, times have changed. Otherwise I’d give you the DAV chapters’ contact in Colorado with person to brief you in detail.