Brighten Your Day

I am an officer for a government agency working at a disability/welfare office and I got to see the coolest thing today.

A homeless man, Charlie, came in with a power wheelchair that didn't work. It's batteries would no longer charge.

As I was pushing him around the office, first to get checked in, then to an outlet to get some charge in his batteries, then back to a window to be seen... etc. A woman noticed and asked Charlie if his chair was dead and how long he had it.

He's needed it for about three years now, after he got stabbed in the back of the neck leaving him paralyzed on the left side. He's on disability and doesn't have much money to replace the battery which will now only hold a charge for about ten minutes, so he mostly just pushes himself around with his right foot, traveling backwards.

The Woman, Diane, explained that her brother is also paralyzed and they have an older chair that they're not using. She asked Charlie if he would like it. Charlie said yes.

Diane left and came back about an hour later. She asked me to unload the new chair, which I did. Now, I don't know much about powered wheelchairs, but I can tell this is no basic model. It not only drives, it can lift up, recline, and do other stuff too. Turns out it's like a $20,000 chair.

Charlie looked it over and said it sure is nice. But Diane tells us there's one small problem, the new chair won't charge because it hasn't been used in two years.

So what does Diane do? She tells Charlie she will take it over to the Medical Supply Store that's just a block away and see if they can put new batteries in it or get it working.

So I loaded the chair back into her van, and they all took off to get the new chair up and running.

Let me tell you, in 13 years of law enforcement and security work, I've never seen anything like that.

The funny thing was Diane actually told me I was an angel for helping Charlie get around the office.

No, ma'am it's you.