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From: Bill.Freads@f700.n12.z1.fidonet.org (Bill Freads)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Wheelchairs and Snow/Ice
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Date: 31 Jan 91 20:57:33 GMT
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> and friends, I was confronted this week by snow and ice,
> which have lingered. My first reaction is just to stay put
> for the duration, but then I thought I would try to tap the
> snow ice experiences of people on the echo. What if anything
> do you do about getting out in this kind of weather? It
 

Hello Harry, just what I did yesterday Jan.12/91, after a heavy
snowstorm, I mounted my trusty 3-wheeled Fortress 2000 and off I
went, I nearly got stuck in some places, people are not as keen on
clearing ice & snow as they used to be, might be because a bit of a
freezing rain was just setting in, I talked to a Lady in the Lobby
of my bldg. sy said that she couldn't make it across the street in
her manual Wheelchair, so she couldn't do her weekend shopping, I
found the places that don't care about clearing snow are mostly
Churches and some small Businesses, once the stuff turns into
something of a Slushpuppy consistience, it is very hard to get
about, crossing streets is another thing, the heavy sluch will
build up to almost 12-18" of Snowbank, the only way I managed to
get across was to take a full run (7 mph) at these things, since it
is familiar territory, I know where the sidewalk is even with the
street pavement, so I barely made it to the store and back, but I
would not recommend anyone in a manual Wheelchair to go out in that
type of weather unless you have someone to help you, you'll get
stuck, even to-day, everything is frozen solid, so it even more of
an hazard to go via a WheelChair, I won't even use my machine,
cause from last winters experience, I'll get stuck, and the reason
is simply "Too many parts of Sidewalk haven't been cleared" and are
now solid Ice.

Cheers.

 Bill

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