{"id":1304,"date":"2017-05-11T14:38:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T18:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2020-02-11T14:52:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T19:52:36","slug":"beach-wheelchair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/beach-wheelchair.html","title":{"rendered":"Going to the Beach with a Wheelchair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Submitted by: Jason\u00a0Anderson<\/p>\n

\"manual<\/p>\n

As I was taking a stroll on the boardwalk one evening with my wife, enjoying the cool fresh summer air and watching the waves sweep up the sand on the shore, I suddenly noticed an elderly person in a wheelchair struggling to move forward. I quickly ran over to help and realized that the front wheels of his chair were stuck\u00a0in the soft sand.<\/p>\n

I was honestly surprised that\u00a0he got so far from the boardwalk without getting stuck, but\u00a0this wasn’t the time to figure that out, it was time to help him, so I did. I got his front tires out of the sand and then pulled the wheelchair backwards, which I figured would be easier since the large rear wheels allow\u00a0the pressure to be\u00a0distributed over a larger area. I scanned the area and found a ramp back onto the boardwalk planks and I led\u00a0him back to safety. He profoundly thanked me, wished us both a good night and went on his way.<\/p>\n

The little encounter got me\u00a0thinking how difficult it must be for individuals\u00a0in a wheelchair that can’t they enjoy the everyday things that we do. I wondered if there wasn’t a simple way for wheelchair users to enjoy the beach and not have to stay on the boardwalk and watch the fun from afar.<\/p>\n

I thought about it a bit and I realized that it’s possible that if the front wheels of that gentleman’s wheelchair were\u00a0a little bigger, he might not have gotten stuck in the sand. Standard\u00a0manual wheelchairs<\/a> have 8″\u00a0front wheels, but\u00a0bigger wheels might work better. Another thing I noticed, after searching around a bit about wheelchairs used on the beach, was that wheelchairs with slightly wider rear wheels, as well as those with more traction, seem to do better on sand – even the loosely packed sand that’s commonly found\u00a0on the\u00a0beachfront. I did see that they sell beach wheelchairs, but the prices are\u00a0beyond reason for anyone who doesn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a spare wheelchair – unless they have a home on the beach, in which case it might be a worthwhile investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Submitted by: Jason\u00a0Anderson As I was taking a stroll on the boardwalk one evening with my wife, enjoying the cool fresh summer air and watching the waves sweep up the sand on the shore, I suddenly noticed an elderly person in a wheelchair struggling to move forward. I quickly ran over to help and realized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-posts","category-wheelchairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3889,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions\/3889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avacaremedical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}