LIFE UNBOUND: Where The Rubber Meets The Road
Barton and Megan Cutter
A monthly series by S. Barton Cutter
Several months ago, Megan and I participated in The Run for Young here in Raleigh. This annual race honors Sadiki Young, a young man who was killed in a car wreck in which the driver had been drinking. The fundraiser is a reminder for young people to make healthier driving decisions.
Have you ever seen the first scene in “The Intouchables,” the French movie about a man with a spinal cord injury and his support worker? In the first scene, the support worker is speeding down the road, leading police on a chase. When the police catch up with them, Philippe, a quadriplegic, fakes a seizure for a bet with his worker on how fast he could get them out of the situation.
Now, Megan and I haven’t led police on a chase or faked a medical emergency, but I may have gotten us out of speeding tickets a time or two.
And just like in the scene where the caretaker, Driss, is feeding Philippe but gets distracted so that the bite of food lands in his eye instead of his mouth, I have been known to receive more than one French Fry up my nose while being fed by the driver of a moving car.
It’s so easy to get complacent on the road, to forget that, while our cars and SUVs are metal boxes used to get us from place A to place B, they can also easily turn into unintended wrecks and tragic losses. Many times we are too wrapped up in our lives to remember this, so Megan and I were thrilled to be able to participate in The Run for Young.
Not to mention that this was my first 5K ever and I was psyched to burn up the road in my power chair!
I was psyched to burn up the road in my power chair!
We were lucky that the sun came out for the race during that cold winter weather system. I was also excited because I’d always wanted to participate in a 5 or 10K race, but we could never figure out how to get my power chair to the start location, especially on weekends when the buses run less frequently.
As we ran this fun race, I zipped in front of Megan with our dog, Bear, leased to my chair, effectively setting Megan’s pace and taunting her to keep running.
After the halfway mark, I persuaded Megan to jump on the back of my wheelchair to take a break from running. But we were soon reminded by at least three police officers blocking off roads for the race that, yes, we were cheating.
And Karma got us in the end.
I wanted to carry Megan all the way to the finish, so I convinced her to stay on, holding tightly as I made tight curves and hoofed us up a hill. Just before the finish line, however, we tripped a circuit breaker on my chair and ended the race by having to push my now-motorless wheels through the finish line with the help of several amused runners who’d witnessed our antics. In the end of the rce, we were in stitches with poor Bear clearly wondering why we’d slowed down.
With the beauty and fun of summer now upon us, where will you be getting on the road?
RHA: News & Events 
Leave a comment