by Serena St. John

Created on: April 30, 2008

Is it Really Handicapped-Accessible?

Attach a wheelchair ramp and widen a door and you have met the requirements for being handicapped accessible, so think some. Despite the fact that the American Disabilities Act (a.k.a. ADA) was passed in 1990 to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities (Chapter 126 Sec. 12101.b.2) so much confusion still exists around it that the disabled population continues to be eliminated from the amenities we all take for granted as "able-bodied" individuals. It would not surprise me to learn that the engineers designing the handicapped facilities never even bothered to take a ride around an establishment while confined to a wheelchair. Either way, pure ignorance or indifference keeps the disabled apart from the rest of society. What say we ask their opinions when constructing these various facilities? Left to the mercy of the current decision-makers the segregation will only continue.

Those public places that existed before the ADA have yet to fully conform to providing proper renovations to insure compliance. But even more disappoint, the new-builds are not accommodating 9 times out of 10, despite advertising themselves as handicapped-accessible. Are these pure oversights or slipping through loop holes? Irregardless of the reason, it needs to change.

My husband was struck by a falling 2x8x10 foot plank in December 2004 at age 35. It was dropped by another employee and with the speed it picked up the 2 floors it fell, along with the weight added to it by caked-on dry and wet cement, the injury was catastrophic. He was rendered a quadriplegic on impact, and will never walk again. We are grateful for the atypical use of his arms which he blessedly regained within months of the injury. But the list of losses extends well beyond not walking.

Unlike the glorious stories of complete recovery with a cold-saline hypothermic treatment, my husband's condition was not to reverse itself. And thus began the quest for adjustment. Part of that adjustment would be our new awareness to the physical world of the physically disabled. In a world where things are by law supposed to be handicapped accessible we would find many obstacles along the way.

Going to any facility always requires a preparatory plan. To show up after doing your preliminary homework only to find that the establishment misrepresented itself as being accessible is more than disheartening. On more than

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