I had just boarded the train for my South bound trip home last night. The boarding process was bit difficult because the biggest Jazzy I had ever seen. The jumbo driving the Jazzy had it kinda wedged half way in the designated seating area and the center aisle. This was cool, I worked my way round him and we were OK. Well the very next stop the second largest Jazzy I have ever encountered with a similar big boy driving it (these guys are even bigger then I am) I wish I had got images of these guys and their powerchair but I obviously did not have enough pixels. So, Big Boy number two waddles his chair on board. The Big Boy number one is trying to wiggle chair out of the way so I have enough room to slide by him and make more room behind me. Big Boy number Two for some stupid reason started pushing me from the rear and side and this caused me to advance pushing my foot into BB#1 he tries to move even more and pries me into the metal stanchion in doing so caught my hand control cable between the metal on my chair metal on the stanchion causing the sharp end of the stanchion to lacerate and sever the cable in a magnificent rooster tail of blue sparks and smoke. I was dead on the train.
When ever something like this happens I go into this zombie mode where I get into one routine and do the routine over and over again in hopes that something I do will have a positive outcome. In this case I sat there turning the chair on and off and each time I would get the same result a row of flashing lights from my hand control, indicating something was dreadfully wrong with the over-all unit.
Evan, my buddy, was riding the train last night and Evan hardly rides the train anymore since he has been taking a bus which runs a better time schedule and gets him closer to his home then the Train does. But tonight of all nights, Evan missed his regular bus forcing him to take the train. I am driving three block, into the city now, to catch my train. This trip take awhile longer but the scenery is better and seems there are more opportunities for adventure. Evan is one interesting guy and I will write about Evan one day but not today. I was able to call Dianne from the train who came to meet at the station with my wheelchair van. I instructed Evan how to disengage the clutches of the power chair which allow the power chair to free wheel allowing me or the power chair to be pushed. Evan elected to stay with me, eve though his wife had already left their home to pick him up at his own station, one more down the track from mine.
Dianne was just pulling into the parking area of my train station as we were pulling in. I told Evan he should stay on the train because Dianne could probably take it from here and push me to the van and home. Evan being the gentle man he is would not hear of such talk and pushed me all the way from the ramp to the lift Dianne had already deployed. When I was secure Evan went on hid way and we on our way. Of course this incident happened at 5:55pm and all the technical support options have closed for the day. My brother Carl lives a few blocks from ours and he has been great in keeping me and my wheelchairs going—this is yet another story too. Now, my brother is a husband, a very involved grandfather and church member so there is hardly a time that Carl is not busy. Tonight, however, his wife is off tending grandkids and Carl has the time to spend with my chair. We sat in our van an hour while Carl looked at any options to get the chair operational.
The cable is actually six smaller wires wrapped into one cable. One of the center was wires was nearly vaporized by the power surge. There was nothing of the wire to splice the wire was turning to powder everywhere Carl touched: bottom lime, they chair was not going anywhere again under it’s own power until a new cable could be installed.
Dianne dropped me off at work this morning and went over to Magic Rest and dropped the chair off there. They had the chair up and running an hour later. They replaced the cable and now the chair seems to work just dandy. I was expecting far worse, just $150.00—that is not bad. Had I fried the mother board( which is pretty common in power surges such as this), or burned out the controller then we could be talking about thousands of dollars . In fact I gave myself a limit: if the repair was going to be more the $500.00 for get it. I was going to purchase one of the used models off my website for $500.00. The main control Board could still be affected and I am going to take the unit in for a full evaluation (tune up $75.00) next week. I have heard of too many tales when a program board, after being exposed to a power surge of one sort or another could and would engage itself independent of the driver and just drive, uncontrollably away. This is all I would need while sitting on the platform when waiting fore the train.
Now the events surrounding this incident were miraculous, minimally miraculous, maybe a type two or type three miracle. Not a sea splitting, rising from the dead, complete remission type miracle but just a common everyday garden variety miracle wrought by one person’s goodness to another.
PS: Then this noon I took Dianne to lunch at the Mall across the street and there was BB#1 sitting in the food court grazing!! I could not believe it. The worst part is that I had left my cam,era in my office becaus i figured I would not have anything to capture. when will I learn?
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