In my childhood, my family had a green van with this giant, clunky, highly-impractical metal ramp that folded out of the passenger side sliding door. The whole setup was entirely manual—no mechanical assistance—and the grated metal ramp weighed as much as half a small elephant. So when I needed to get in or out of my van, someone had to basically risk their life folding the metal death trap ramp out of the van for me. It was almost like the ramp manufacturer ~enjoyed~ how absurdly dangerous their product was because they made almost zero effort to safety proof any aspect of it. The grating was literally sharpened metal, like a cheese grater. If a child ran his fingers along the surface of the ramp, he would pull back nothing but stumps.
There wasn’t even a handle to assist the user! You were just expected to bleed a little bit if you wanted to use your van.
Ironically, the only safety mechanism they did include ended up being the thing that hurt me the most. At the base of the ramp, where it connected to the floor of the van, there was a spring-loaded lever, about the size of a #2 pencil, but made of solid heavy-duty steel. This lever pushed against the outwardly folding ramp to reduce the weight of the monstrous beast enough so that my mom only tore her spinal muscles every ~other~ time she pulled the ramp out.
One day, spunky little carefree toddler Shane was sitting in his van waiting to exit after a trip to the supermarket for more Bagel Bites. Dad began the slow, grunting process of pulling the ramp down without flattening himself, when for no good reason at all, the metal lever snapped like a twig under the immense pressure of the ramp. The “spring-loaded” nature of this device turned the snapped lever into an elongated bullet that shot from the floor directly into my face with blink-of-an-eye velocity. Before any of these events registered, I was doubled over in pain, watching as blood poured from my face into my lap. It felt like I’d been smacked in the face with a crowbar. I wailed, and I’m not even ashamed of that. It was grisly.
Dad turned on his panicked parent mode and leapt into action. The bleeding was dealt with and I ended up only needing a butterfly bandage, so the illusions I had of bleeding to death must’ve been slightly embellished by my childish imagination. But had the lever hit me just a few centimeters to the North, it would’ve been my eye, and that could’ve been a very different story.
The really cool part was that without the assistance lever, the ramp now weighed its true amount, so it took two people to wrestle it in and out of the van for each use.
And that’s what we did, for a few years if I remember correctly, because this van was our only way of getting me anywhere in my wheelchair—to school, to therapy, to the playground, to adaptive baseball practice. My parents and family did what they needed to do to get me around, and this is a theme for so many families living with muscular dystrophy. I’m incredibly fortunate that I even had a van. It may not have been perfect, but we made it work and took the spring-loaded facial injuries in stride.
Today, accessible vehicle technology has obviously improved drastically. Everything is electronic now; there’s no more clunky ramps or dangerous maneuvering. In fact, I can get in and out of my van totally unassisted, using an app on my phone. It’s nuts.
My nonprofit, Laughing At My Nightmare, is raising money to provide a fully-accessible van to someone living with muscular dystrophy. We are well over halfway to achieving our goal for the campaign, so now more than ever, we need your help. Every dollar you donate is being 100% matched, getting us that much closer to changing a life in a major way. Sharing this post is another great way to help us be successful!
You can donate here: https://igg.me/at/hbpDQpdDT94
Thank you so much for helping us change the world. I’ve included a photo as proof that there were no lasting scars.
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