Wheelchair

About 50 people in wheelchairs blocked the driveway at the Greyhound bus terminal in Center City yesterday to protest the company's failure to provide access for the handicapped to its buses. Police made no arrests.

I have spinal muscular atrophy, which makes me wheelchair-bound. And I see a problem with wheelchair accessibility. First, in the School District of Philadelphia, the majority of the elementary schools seem to be without an elevator. That means students with disabilities have to find a different school to attend. I had to wait at least two months to attend my neighborhood school, Strawberry Mansion Middle/High School in North Philadelphia, in 2000. The school wasn't wheelchair accessible.

On Saturday, I intended to drive an old friend to the recycling center to be crushed. Our reliable companion had not lost its energy or mobility but was bored just sitting in the garage. Our friend, an $8,000 motorized wheelchair, very nearly became an innocent victim of our throwaway society. My mother, a stroke survivor with one leg and one arm, died July 23. The wheelchair had served her well, giving her daily independence and freedom, regularly and reliably, for five years.

SEPTA will remove seats from rail cars on its regional line to make room for people in wheelchairs as the result of a lawsuit against the transit authority. A federal judge yesterday ordered SEPTA to make rail cars wheelchair- accessible by March 1, but a SEPTA spokeswoman said the work was already under way. SEPTA agreed to the arrangement as the result of a suit filed in March 1986 by Disabled in Action and others. DIA president Steve Margolis said the agreement means wheelchair-bound people will be able to ride commuter trains "for the first time.

Robin Palley's March 23 article about the experience of Jerry Rhoten, a Virginian in Philadelphia for medical treatment, reveals the positive attitudes and heroic achievements of this man and his doctors. However, it also shows a public attitude towards a human being so shocking that it is beyond belief! Every time I ride through Philadelphia, I am distressed at the environmental ugliness of a once-beautiful city. Now I am more than distressed at an equally ugly treatment of a man in the city of "Brotherly Love.

A Deptford woman was indicted Wednesday on assault and weapons charges for allegedly beating her boyfriend's wheelchair-bound father with an ironing board, burning the man with an iron, and biting him on the neck during an argument, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office. Dawn M. Deputy, 32, and the victim's son, Christopher J. Mood, 25, lived with Daniel Mood, 60, in Deptford, where the beating took place on June 23, officials said. The younger Mood told authorities he was outside the house during the alleged incident.

A man in a motorized wheelchair was killed and two dozen SEPTA bus passengers were shaken up in a grinding crash yesterday afternoon. SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said the crash happened about 4:15 p.m. on Eighth Street just south of Girard Avenue. Maloney said it appeared that the man was crossing Eighth from the west when a westbound 47 bus was turning left onto Eighth from Girard. The crash happened near the intersection, which has a hair salon on the southwest corner and a gas station on the southeast.

Eileen Sabel's protest signs could be seen from all angles. She had a flier taped in front on her lap and three big signs fastened on the other sides of her wheelchair. Sabel, known as "Spitfire," wants wheelchair-accessible taxicabs. Monday night, when a bus she was riding broke down, she had to steer her powered wheelchair home in the rain. "I'm not a villain," said Sabel, 61, who lives in Germantown. "It's not fair. The word is dignity . " About 200 protesters from three groups gathered Tuesday morning outside the Convention Center to demand accessible taxicabs.

SEPTA is seeking $12 million in damages from a Colorado manufacturing firm that SEPTA says failed to provide properly working wheelchair lifts for 150 buses. In a suit filed in U.S. District Court yesterday, the SEPTA accused the firm of breaching its contract to provide the buses, breaching warranties, negligence and misrepresentation. SEPTA is seeking $2 million in compensatory damages from Neoplan USA, of Lamar, Colo., and $10 million in punitive damages. A spokeswoman for Neoplan said the firm's officials had not seen the court papers and would have no comment on the lawsuit.

A Municipal Court judge in Glassboro yesterday dismissed a motor vehicle charge against a woman in a motorized wheelchair who local police said was driving without lights. Judge Jay R. Powell threw out the charge, determining that the wheelchair was not a vehicle and not subject to the restrictions or requirements of a motor vehicle. For Monica Himes, 34, who suffers multiple sclerosis and has lived in Glassboro for seven years, the case marked another fight with borough officials that she has won. "This is an explicit example of how society does not allow the disabled to be visible," said Himes, who has brought several civil rights cases against the borough.

THE FEDERAL Occupational Health & Safety Administration has launched an inspection into working conditions at Philadelphia International Airport in response to a series of complaints filed last week on behalf of subcontracted baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants. The inspection, which can take up to six months, is a standard response to work-condition complaints, OSHA spokeswoman Leni Fortson said. The complaints allege that some airport workers employed by the subcontractor PrimeFlight Aviation Services, which does business in Philly with US Airways, United and Southwest, do not receive training on how to help handicapped passengers, are exposed to blood and other bodily fluids without protection and are forced to use faulty equipment.

Workers who push passengers in wheelchairs at Philadelphia International Airport filed complaints with the U.S. Transportation Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) alleging that their employer, PrimeFlight Aviation Services, and three airlines that contract with it failed to provide proper training and equipment to safely do their jobs. The complaints, filed Thursday, allege violations of the federal Air Carrier Access Act and ask the Transportation Department to impose fines and order US Airways, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines to force PrimeFlight to correct the problems.

  On this same weekend a year ago, because she couldn't walk, Julia England would recharge at the same time as her power wheelchair. Her best friend, Sami Musumeci, would wheel her into a storage room. "We have to plug you in," Sami would tell her, insisting Julia rest. "You can't fight me on this. " Julia and Sami are seniors at Rowan University and co-chairs this year and last of the Relay for Life, a benefit for the American Cancer Society. This year, Julia, back on her feet, would need to pace herself, a verb not usually in her vocabulary.

RIO DE JANEIRO - One minute, Renata Glasner is watching the waves crash on Leblon beach from her wheelchair. The next, she's plowing through the turbulent waters, riding the choppy waves on a specially adapted surfboard. Glasner, 35, a graphic designer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four years ago, is one of dozens of disabled people - with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, people missing a limb, the blind, the deaf and even the paralyzed - on this special strip of Rio de Janeiro beach who are conquering the waves.

Ramon is a likable 17-year-old with a wonderful personality and a brilliant smile that draws people to him. He is known for his sense of humor and pleasant, friendly manner. Ramon takes pleasure in pleasing others. He is skilled at dealing with change and building relationships with people he is just meeting, and thrives on one-to-one attention. Ramon expresses himself well and understands some Spanish. Ramon enjoys watching television, listening to music, attending birthday parties, and spending time with friends.

Several years removed from his football days in South Jersey and at Lafayette College, Ed Carter rolls his wheelchair toward his pets' cage, opens the door, and plops one of his two ferrets atop his lap, gently nuzzling and kissing the one he calls Slinky. "These guys," he said, nodding at the cage that sits in a dining room that was converted into his bedroom, "have helped me get through a lot. " For Carter, 30, a man who barely escaped death four years ago, this holiday season is special.

ATLANTA - An elderly man opened fire on a woman after her car came into contact with his motorized wheelchair at a central Georgia service station, authorities said Wednesday. She died shortly afterward at a hospital despite the efforts of a crowd of people to aid her. Police said that Linda Hunnicutt, 65, was driving onto the gas-pump bay of the service station in Macon at about 1 p.m. Tuesday when her Buick Lucerne and the motorized wheelchair bumped. Hunnicutt stepped out of her vehicle, and the man in the motorized wheelchair pulled a handgun and fatally shot her, city police spokeswoman Jami Gaudet said.

HOWARD AND ANN Korsen never complain about caring for their disabled daughter, Mara. But don't get them started on what it's like to haggle with insurance companies over her care. "It's emotionally and physically draining to have a disabled child," says Howard, 60, who lives with his family in Mount Laurel, N.J. "But Mara didn't ask for this. We're her parents, and we owe her the best we can give. It only feels unfair when we deal with the insurance company. " Mara is 17, but developmentally she's practically a toddler.

After three hours of testimony that left even the defense attorney moved to the brink of tears, Christopher Easton, 21, a high school dropout from Northern Liberties, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for the attempted murder of Kevin Neary, a self-employed businessman who lived in the neighborhood. Neary, 29, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, was walking home Nov. 15 after a night out with friends when he was mugged on Bodine Street within view of his front door.

The disabled man said he had never seen the two people who showed up at his door, but allowed them to enter his apartment anyway. They proceeded to beat him, yank him out of his wheelchair; drag him "like a rag doll" from the kitchen to the living room, and make off with his 55-inch TV, an X-Box 360, and painkillers, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said this morning. They then took the cellphone from the 37-year-old unnamed victim, who has muscular dystrophy, and threw it behind a chair to keep him from calling for help.