A couple of months ago, while waiting in line for an order of fish and chips, the person behind me asked how I liked my wheelchair, He then informed me that he had a used one for sale and without boring you with the details, I'll simply say that I ended up buying it. My old chair was due for new tires, overdue actually, and the batteries were getting old so I thought why not buy this one, the price was really good, and then I'd have a second chair which I could perhaps modify to use as a winter chair.
In a previous post, I lamented about how bad my chair performed in even a little bit of snow, how I'd gotten stuck several times last winter and how expensive it would be to import a winter worthy chair from the states. Anyway, I was relating this info to a support worker from the arthritis society and she told me about Tetra, a group made up of volunteer engineers who design devices for people with disabilities. I looked them up on the internet, found the local chapter and emailed them. After several emails we met and discussed the possibilities for winterizing my chair. Today I received an email from Joe, one of the engineers, who thinks he has found a solution, some larger tires with more tread which, with some minor modifications to the chair, should do the job.
Needless to say I am pretty excited about the possibility of having a chair that will allow me to remain mobile throughout the winter. These people have really been wonderful to work with up to this point and I am so grateful that I was able to find them. So, stay tuned and perhaps before too long I'll have a picture of my new beast to post.
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