‘I was really ignorant’: How being inept altered one woman’s perspective of how a universe treats infirm people

A wheelchair user from Fort Nelson in northeastern B.C. is pulling for improved accessibility for all, formed on her possess practice struggling with relocating around. 

Two years ago, Kristi Leer severed her spinal cord in a automobile crash. Since then, Leer has used a wheelchair to get around. 

Leer says a knowledge has been eye opening.

“You know when we got in this chair, I’m going to be really honest, my opinion toward persons with disabilities and wheelchairs was really ignorant, and when we contend ignorant, we meant not knowing,” Leer told horde Carolina de Ryk on Daybreak North.

“The thing was we satisfied everybody in a wheelchair is a same as we and we … The problem is a space we’ve authorised for all a humans in a universe is not designated for a wheelchair.”

Leer says one instance is when she tries to park her car. Leer continued her work as a trade instructor after a accident, in partial by regulating a specialized automobile that she can expostulate while sitting in her wheelchair. 

However, a automobile requires a lot of space around it so that she can get in and out of her automobile safely. To get in, she presses an involuntary symbol on a remote to extend a five-foot ramp out of a drivers side. The wheelchair itself is around three-feet wide. 

“[Any parking space] needs to have an extra, we say, 12 feet beside of it for me to park in,” she said.

And those spots are tough to come by. Leer tries to park subsequent to dull spots, though if she earnings to find someone has parked in it, she has to find that person, so that they can pierce their car.

Advocating for change

This week, Leer met with a South Fraser Active Living organisation in Vancouver. The organisation has already petitioned internal municipalities about changing their parking space bylaws. 

Leer has already reached out to a provincial and sovereign governments. 

B.C.’s Social Development and Poverty Reduction Minister Shane Simpson pronounced Leer’s knowledge highlights a need to make a range some-more thorough and accessible. 

“We’re building a province’s initial accessibility legislation, that will be sensitive by a ideas, practice and feedback we listened from people like Kristen,” Simpson said. “We know there’s some-more to be done, though the supervision is creation accessibility a priority.”

His ministry says one aim of the legislation would be to emanate accessibility standards. 

Leer pronounced she’ll be reaching out to her mayor and legislature next. 

“When we can’t get around in your area, there’s no indicate in being anywhere and people are staying home since of it,” Leer said.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wheelchair-accessibility-fort-nelson-1.5430035?cmp=rss