Offspring has been looking forward to Feb 10th, 2012 forever because that's the day Star Wars Episode I in 3D comes out. I figured it would be jammed packed at the theatre, so I bought tickets online in advance, and we left at 6:15 for a 7 pm movie, because I wanted to have plenty of time to snag the h/c seats. We went outside and as we have done gad zillions of times before, we got Wheeler onto the ramp. Here's how it usually goes:
Instead, when he rolled into the van, he hit his head on the top of the door jam going in. This was strange because, well, he never hits his head there. I have to back up a bit though to give some background. Wheeler's chair is so tall that he cannot fit into the opening of the van on the ramp unless he reclines some. As such, he reclines and rolls in, then sits up and finishes rolling into the van and positioning himself so that I can tie down the wheelchair. So when he hit his head, I figured that he must have forgotten to recline and that's why he was too tall to fit in the van.
So now he's chin to chest, pinned down pretty much, and stuck. He obviously can't roll backwards, that would chop his head off. He is pinned so tightly that I don't think he can even roll forwards, so we sit there and think. I decide that the best thing to do would be for me to climb through the front seat, get out, disengage the chair so that I can roll it (when he is driving it, its not possible to just pull it, you have to move a lever on the bottom so that it can roll freely) out enough for him to recline further.
But he says that he thinks he can drive forward, so stupidly, I agree. This is what resulted:
His chair CLIMBED up and OVER one of the flip-up guards at the end of the ramp (not pictured because I suck at drawing) that are supposed to stop him from falling off the ramp. Well, they would have except that the chair climbed over it. The picture is simplified (see suck at drawing comment), but what happened is that his left front tire was dangling in space, hanging over the side of the ramp. The left front tire was driven up about half way over the flip guard, but wasn't totally over the flip guard. That was what saved his life - that that 2nd tire didn't go completely over. Somehow he managed to stop the chair and we all just froze in place with his chair dangling over the edge, crooked. Realizing just how close to death he came (<---- not hyperbole, if he'd gone face first onto the concrete, in a 350 pound wheelchair, he would have died).
Now we had to figure out how to get him down. Because his front wheel was totally over the flip-up guard, and it was wedged under his wheel, so if I let the ramp down, it was wedge even further. But there wasn't really any other choice but to lower the ramp, so I did, and as I thought, it wedged on the ground. At that point, I disengaged the chair and pushed with all my might and to my utter shock, I was able to push his wheel up and over the guard and his chair was now back on the ramp. I raised the lift up some, then lowered it all the way to the ground, where the flip guards laid down flat to allow him to roll off the ramp, just as they are supposed to. Which he did.
Then we all stood there and looked at each other.
Eventually we figured out what had happened. Earlier in the day, Wheeler had been at his desk, playing on his computer. To do so, he has to raise the seat of his chair up a little, so that he is at the right height for the desk. Unfortunately, he forgot to lower his chair and that's why he got wedged in the door jam when he got in the van. So he lowered his chair, we tried it again, all went well and we went to the movies.
But as Wheeler summarized once we got all situated in the van finally, "Anyone need a change of pants?"
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