Mr. Wheelchair & Mrs. Escalator Bury the Hatchet On Accessibility

News Flash: Rolling a wheelchair onto an escalator will NOT kill you, seriously…

Anticipating your first escalator ride in a wheelchair, is kind of like anticipating the first time you had sex.  You’re anxiously nervous with fear, then it happens, you finish, and then you say “That was it?!”…..

I posted a week or 2 ago, explaining how to easily ride up and down escalators as a paraplegic using a manual wheelchair.  If you haven’t read the post check it out here.  By chance, I was lucky enough to have the physical therapists at Jackson Memorial Hospital teach me how to easily ride up and down escalators when I stayed for in-patent rehabilitation.

Often times the “accessible” elevator route is completely out of the way, and there always seems to be an escalator a bit closer.  Below is a video to better show the wheelchair escalator exercise.  I was visiting a friend (what up Mikey G) in New York City a few weeks ago and we filmed some wheelchair escalator rides at the Macy’s store.

Also, something I neglected to mention in the video… When riding up or down the escalator in your wheelchair, be sure not to pull down on the sliding black handrails too hard.  If so, there’s a good chance they’ll slide/slip at a different speed than the steps.  When this happens, it causes the escalator to emergency shut off immediately.  The result…  Poor wheelchair guy (or girl) stuck half way up a stopped escalator.  I don’t mean to scare anyone, I just want to express the importance of NOT pulling down on the handrails.  Thanks “WheelzOfFortune” for the tip reminder.

SUMMARY: If you’re confined to a wheelchair and choose to use an escalator as a form of convenient egress, I say rock on.