Dealing with Disabilities I

Wheelchair Rugby
My current sports engineering project involves working with wheelchair rugby athletes. The aim of my project is to develop a wireless sensor for measuring performance of the wheelchair athletes on the court. Wheelchair rugby is still a relatively unknown sport that originated from Canada that started in 1977. It became recognised as an international sport in 1993 and an official Paralympic sport with full medal status in the 2000 Sydney Summer Paralympic Games. The game is also known as Quad rugby or Murderball which is the original name of the game. It is similar to rugby in the sense that each side scores a point when they carry the ball across the opponent's goal; but instead of playing in a field, the game is played typically in an indoor basketball court. The players are quadriplegic mostly due to spinal cord injuries.

The first time I met some of the players from the Australian team was during a test session at the sports engineering lab in RMIT. They all drove themselves there, brought their own gear and stuff. They came with two wheelchairs each: the first one is their daily use wheelchair which they use to get around and the second one is their customised rugby wheelchair for training and competitions. On top of that, they brought spare wheels, someone brought a portable compressor, and their sports tape, gloves etc. I look at them and my impression of them is: they are elite athletes who are serious about what they are doing, just like any other professional athletes.

Though they have a disability, they don't let that stop themselves from being independent, being active and competitive and simply living their lives to the full potential. 'Abled' people really have a thing or two to learn from them.

Testing on the wheelchair ergometer

Trying to capture some high speed footage

But of course, watching them do drills individually in the lab is nothing compared to watching them play an actual game. Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to take some measurements of them during an actual match - I mounted my iPhone on one of their wheelchairs in order to measure accelerations during the game. Once the game started, I saw them going all out, with full aggression, hitting each other harder than what you see on AFL or Rugby League; they don't seem too worried about sustaining any more injuries but I was praying hard that my iPhone will survive all those hard knocks.

Short clip of a wheelchair rugby game:

Workshop with Emma Gee
Recently I attended a workshop presented by Emma Gee. She is an occupational therapist and stroke survivor. At age 24, she discovered she had Arteriovenous malformation, went through an operation which gave her a stroke and became hemiplegic since then. While going through the rehabilitation process,  her perspective to many things changed and she became an inspirational speaker to share some of her insights, to help people get back on their feet and to be an advocate for disabled people.

During the workshop, she shared about an incident during one of her travels where she booked a hotel room one month prior and she specifically requested for a room with disability access. On arrival, the hotel attendant took her to the suite (apparently they 'upgraded' her) and she was shocked to find out the suite had two floors and the bedroom was upstairs. She turned to the attendant saying she can't handle stairs because of her disability but the attendant only apologised to say there were no other rooms available. I think that is just unacceptable! Obviously, her request was not communicated to the other hotel staff and they did nothing to make the situation better. In the end, she could only overcome the situation herself by crawling up the stairs to get to the bedroom.

There were other stories similar to this in which she emphasised the importance of communication, doing things meaningfully and purposefully (for engineers: designing things that are meaningful and useful, not just because we can), and putting yourself in other people's shoes.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12 (NIV)

She went through many other bad experiences where things were really tough and she saw that she could either curl up and wish life didn't exist or she could step up and inspire change. She chose the latter and because of that, me and a room of engineers could be inspired (in many ways) by her life. I'm not sure if she is a Christian or not; if she is, I believe God has a grand purpose for her life.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27 (NIV)

I'm not saying we should all go ahead and get a disability but sometimes we can be so focused on our own strengths and abilities that we forget all about God. It's like when Jesus went up on a mountainside and thousands of people were following Him; He posed a challenge to Philip: where shall they buy bread for these people? Philip did a quick calculation and concluded that eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite! Philip decided that it was impossible based on what he has. Then a boy comes along with only five loaves and two fish (which is definitely worth less than eight months wages) and Jesus used that to perform a miracle.