Have you seen the movie Murderball? The Internet Movie Database calls it, “a film about paraplegics who play full-contact rugby in Mad Max-style wheelchairs.”
While rugby and extreme sports have little to do with Haiti at the moment, wheelchairs sure do, especially “Mad Max-style” ones. In a situation where towns are covered in rubble and many people have severe injuries from the recent earthquakes, there’s a desperate need for low-cost, durable wheelchairs.
A perfectly-targeted national government organization is stepping up to fill that need. Whirlwind Wheelchair International designs and builds heavy-duty wheelchairs for use in developing countries around the world, and under the present circumstances, is turning its attention to Haiti, reports PBS Newshour.
“We’re having, so far, 350 chairs made in Vietnam and Mexico, and all sent to Haiti to be distributed to people both with spinal cord injuries and with amputations, usually dual amputations, who absolutely have to get mobility soon, before it’s too late,” co-founder Ralf Hotchkiss told Newshour.
Hotchkiss, who is in a wheelchair himself, started the organization after learning the hard way that wheelchairs are rarely tough enough to withstand any kind of adventurous riding.
“My first wheelchair lasted me half-a-block, and the front wheel was then ripped off by hitting a crack in the sidewalk,” he said. “It was beyond repair.”
The chairs he will provide to disabled people, called the RoughRider, will be head and shoulders above that unfortunate chair of long ago. He was awarded a MacArthur Genius grant for innovating this equipment in ways that can help so many people so fundamentally and for raising awareness about the needs of disabled people in developing countries.
Screenshot courtesy of marckrizack via YouTube.