I was driving down near Julliard Park and was about to turn right on to a side street off of a busy street. I was just waiting for a woman in an electric wheelchair to cross the street. When she got to the curb right next to my truck, her wheelchair came to an abrupt stop but she kept going forward and landed on the ground.
I pulled over onto the side street and walked back to help her up. She says she just fell off her chair and I tell her I know! I heard the chair stop and then I saw you fly out! It was crazy!
What I’m working with: Really sweet woman with one arm, and that one doesn’t work very well. Unable to walk. Much too heavy for me to pick up by myself.
Oh, and she’s not wearing any pants. A nightshirt and a black, leather jacket with puffy shoulders, but no pants. Nothing – and I mean nothing – below the waist except for socks and shoes.
I ask how I can help and she asks if I would mind getting her chair off the street first. I try, but the knob to make it go forward isn’t working. I tell her I am going to try to get it on the curb without running her over with it. She smiles and says that would be nice.
It’s very heavy, but I manage to lift up the back of it and swing it onto the curb. It’s in a good position, since it’s facing her. Now I only have to get her up and one step forward.
I try to help her up, but I can’t manage it. She asks me to hand her the blanket she had next to her in the chair (not on her lap covering all THAT up). She says that will save her knees, as she’s planning to kneel on the blanket as she uses the wheelchair to hoist herself up.
I grab the blanket, and reach over the wheelchair to give it to her and as I do, the wheelchair launches forward and runs into her at full speed. Right into her shins! It doesn’t stop once it hits her – it just keeps going full blast. She is making noises that suggest pain, while I repeat: Oh no! Oh no! A minute ago it won’t go and now I can’t make it stop! And in between her noises that suggest pain she manages to get some words out. One at a time in between the noises:
Ohhh! Ow! You…. Oh! Oof! You…You….Ugh! You are…Ohhh! You are pushing….Ugh! …the lever!
Awesome. The blanket hooked the knob and it kicked into gear and I ran into the woman with her own wheelchair. What an awesome helper I am!
I fix it and ask her if she’s glad I came by to help. She is laughing a little and says that I have to admit, it’s all a little funny. I tell her I will laugh more once the memory of trying to take her out with her own chair isn’t so fresh.
At this time, the men who have been watching not 15 feet away decide that maybe they’ll help phyisically, instead of just willing her to move with their intense powers of the mind.
She gets back into her chair – but not without the MOST awkward and pornographic hoisting that’s ever been seen outside a hospital ward – and I return her blanket to her chair. Spread it out over her lap.
I went around the block back out to the main road that I was turning off of to begin with and guess who I saw coming up towards the crosswalk? But this time, I still had half a block until she reached the curb to cross, so I just waved to her from my car while David asked: Why isn’t she wearing any pants??
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