if you need an ambulance and you use a wheelchair that doesn’t fold, they will force you to leave it behind. wherever it is, wherever you are. just abandon your autonomy and ability to move around and potentially tens of thousands of dollars of equipment
imagine if you needed an ambulance and they said fine but you can’t bring your legs
people have taken issue with my use of the word ‘force’, so, after rolling my eyes so hard i can now see my brain, i will clarify that, no, they can’t 'force’ you to do anything. they will simply not take you to the hospital if you refuse to leave your wheelchair behind.
…but don’t they give you a wheelchair AT the hospital?
@lonewolf23k I think you’re missing the point. Not all wheelchair’s are the same.
Personal wheelchairs are expensive pieces of equipment designed to meet a person’s specific needs and are very different than the type used in hospitals to ferry patients around. And being force to just abandon it randomly not only leaves the wheelchair at risk of being damaged or stolen, makes it difficult to retrieve after a hospital stay, and can leave the owner very vulnerable. I want to compare the situation described as somewhat like being forced to leave your car, unlocked with the keys inside, in a random location while praying nothing happens to it. Except worse.
A Hospital wheelchair is primarily designed for medical staff to transport a patient from place to place rather than independent mobility. They also aren’t designed with the same supports or features that a wheelchair bound individual may need to get around.
Assistive devices related to mobility are rarely interchangeable or ‘one size fits all’.
@lonewolf23k also i don’t want a fucking stranger to be in control of where i move or how. especially given how routinely abusive hospital staff are to disabled people.
would YOU like to go into a hostile environment where many people want to hurt or kill you, without your legs?
Another design is using 2 20x25x1 filters, taping them to the sides of the box fan and then to each other so they sort of make a triangle, then cutting cardboard to make a top and bottom to the triangle.
This was discovered as a more effective design during the 2020 US west coast fires.
