Before a particularly heavy night out, my friend James once said, “Lou, what happens if the wheels come off?”
Good question James, very good question indeed. Now I don’t know about you but I tend to take my wheels for granted. They’re always just there, you know? I suppose that I think about it in the same way as my body – whatever I put them through it’ll just heal.
But I know in reality that this just isn’t the case. If my chair breaks, it isn’t just going to magically repair itself. Equally, it is not just going to break when it is most convenient for me either. That is why you have to have insurance.
And there have been a few events that illuminated this to me over the years. I remember 2 chairs ago, when I had just moved to Leeds as a callow 18 year old, I went on a freshers’ pub crawl and my wheel fell off. No joke, to make matters worse, the whole club turned their eyes on me as I was left confused on the floor. I could only watch with drunken dismay as my wheel made its escape.
Luckily, my wingman Richard was there to catch the escaping wheel before it made good on its attempt. Had I been wheeling home alone, as I have been known to do – it could have made local news.
Tonight on Look North – local man loses wheel off his wheelchair and is forced to spend night on pavement.
It is always a concern in the back of mind, that ‘what if’ situation, especially as I like to travel alone. And thing that I have always had communicated back to me, when working with other people is they have the same concern. When I was working with a young lady, who wanted to go out and socialize with her friends more but she worried about what would happen if something went wrong with her electric char. Now there are number of things to consider when going out with a chair (see my top tips for pub crawls and guide to pulling), but should worst happen – you want to make sure you’re covered.
One of the MBL directors’ Danny, was kind enough to come down and see me in Leeds some weeks back. Although Danny is not in wheelchair himself, he recongnised the importance having things like breakdown cover in place for his clients and I want please to hear that it operated 24/7 – perfect protection for my next drunken adventure! They’ll even send ambulance should I need one – Friday nights are bound to be eventful now! I was also thrilled to hear that they could also cover me worldwide, which will come in handy next time I’m in Amsterdam.
Joking aside, insurance against accidents is a must for the active user and MBL offer a great range of policies. Click the banner to find out more.
