WORLD TRAVEL BY WHEELCHAIR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000200200026-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 11, 2000
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: January 1, 1960
• Content Type: OPEN

1960 Issue
/,eh tu ~ ~i 0/05/05: CIA-RDP75-00
ilit~ti4n eW or
al Center FOIAb3b
Travel by Wheelchair
World
LYMAN B. KIRKPATRICK, JR.
CPYRGHT
The author is a consultant to the United States
Government on international matters and has
occasion to travel extensively throughout the world.
CPYRGHT
artillery-and the perhaps greater hazards ot riving
an automobile-I was disdainful of the damage that
could be done by a disease.
The initial onslaught of the polio completely wiped
out all feeling of self-confidence. This was replaced by
an overwhelming sensation of complete helplessness.
I could raise my head about two inches off the bed;
could lift my left arm a little but could hold nothing
in that hand; could hold things in my right hand but
couldn't lift that arm. There wasn't a thing I. could do
for myself, not even the most elemental aspects of
daily existence. I am told that I am a reasonably in-
telligent person, and I have never lacked for imagina-
tion, but the lack of knowledge of what lay ahead was
close to overwhelming.
While this, is not the story of my reaction to re-
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The first thing that should be said is to explain why
this article is being written. Simply, I feel very strongly
that many others can do what I am now doing but
are constrained from attempting it by fear of the un-
known and innocence of the facts. This statement
should come at the start because it took me a couple
of years to get up my courage to undertake interna-
tional travel in a wheelchair.
After a very active 36 years which included partici-
pation in such sports as football, ice hockey and la-
crosse, rebuilding an old house with my own hands,
three years overseas including a year in combat.-.in
World War II, and a job which called for at least a
60-hour week and travel about a third of each year,
I was felled in one quick blow by a virus called polio-
myelitis. Having survived air raids, machinegun fire,
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CPYRGHT
habilitation, there are milestones that should be noted.
First was when Dr. Howard Rusk entered on the scene
and told me the facts of life; in sum, that just as a
baby I would have to learn all over again how to do
everything, and that just how much I would be able
to do would remain to be seen. The second was when
I arrived at the Institute of Physical Medicine and Re-
habilitation in New York (four months after the on-
slaught of the illness) and was told that henceforth I
would be expected to be dressed each day and follow
an increasingly rigorous program of progressive resist-
ance exercises, physical therapy, hydrotherapy, and
"activities of daily living." This, after a period of being
completely bedridden, and helpless, except for a brief
period of physical therapy and of sitting in a wheel-
chair each day which had been debilitating to morale if
not to body, was like a promise of salvation.
After four months of strenuous treatment I was al-
lowed to go back to work under the conditions that
I would go to the hospital each day as an outpatient
for physical therapy and that I would return to the job
on a part-time basis while gradually building up my
strength. The physical therapy is now twice a week,
mainly stretching and conditioning, plus three swims
a week of about half a mile each, while the workload
has built up to between 50 to 70 hours-more while
traveling.
One cf the big events before I left the Institute to
return tc work was learning to drive a car with hand
controls, my legs having lost all functional value. It
took one lesson, probably in large part because it
marked such a tremendous step forward in the drive
for independence when just a few months previously
I had been totally dependent on others for everything.
I would be less than frank were I not to acknowledge
that there were some very nervous moments for me
at the start as I commenced to drive with hand con-
trols, including one when after turning a corner I
pulled the lever up, thus stepping on the gas rather
than pushing it down to brake. Fortunately the only
casualty was a neighbor's rose bush. After a few weeks
driving to work with somebody with me I had enough
confidence to go to the State Police to be tested, have
my license marked so that my insurance was protected,
and I was on my own. Since that time I have driven
between 15,000 and 25,000 miles a year to and from
work and around the country with the wheelchair in
the back of the car.
When I decided to take the plunge and return to in-
ternational travel I must confess to some nervousness.
This particular journey was to cover a good portion of
the continent of South America. Careful arrangements
were made in advance. The airlines asked th< t: fork-lifts
be available at each, place so that the chaff could be
lifted to the door of the plane, rolled in, and then I could
simply slide over into the seat nearest the door because
to the best of my knowledge there is not a passenger
aircraft that is built that has aisles wide en ugh for a
wheelchair. Messages were sent ahead asking hat reser-
vations be made in 'those hotels that had t w or no
steps-and hopefull~, that had bathroom doors that
were at least twenty-eight inches wide. These were the
advance preparations' that went into the trip to South
America, and the next year to Europe, and tile next to
the Caribbean and Central America, and the next to
Africa, and then to Southeast Asia-and so on.
All of these trips have been accomplished with few
problems for me, andll believe with little inconvenience
for the airline personnel, and others. Most o the time
I stay in the chair to' get in and out of the plane, and
simply slide from the wheelchair to seat and ice versa.
On a couple of occasions I have been carrie up and
down, and while it doesn't bother me physically, a six-
foot-five two hundreds-pound bag of potatoes is not the
most dignified object in the world. And we must stand
on dignity, or sit on' it, as the case may be. While
fork-lifts have been used, some airlines don't like this
because you might falll, off and they feel it would be dif-
ficult to explain why they dropped you on your head.
Most of the time two men get the chair up the ramp step
by step, and bring it down the same way.
While all of my entrances and exits to and rom air-
craft have been accomplished satisfactorily, one or two
of them are quite vivid in my memory. In Caracas, for
example, no fork-lift was available and the ramp was
one of those winding j?bs that curves around i a com-
plete circle. Of course, the wheelchair would not curve
around the ramp so foisr porters hoisted me high in the
air and I had a precarious ride down like some maha-
rajah on. his elephant--but considerably less see re. The
other descent of note as not so precarious a public,
and came because ouif traveling companion when we
arrived in Lima, Peru, was President Stroessner of Para-
guay. When the plane came to a stop, there to greet it
were the cadets of the Peruvian military academies and
all of the diplomatic corps in full dress drawn up in a
square to meet the President. After he had debarked
and was being officially welcomed, up trundled a fork-
lift and a considerable number of Peruvians were treated
to a lesson on how to take a wheelchair from an airplane.
My quick recapitulation indicates that I have flown
on at least nineteen different airlines. The aircraft have
included DC-3's, 6's, 7's, Constellations, Convai s, Vis-
counts, Britannias, etc. lI should stress that no two air-
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CPYRGHT
liners have their seats arranged exactly the same way-
some have seats opposite the door, others don't. About
the best that can be expected if there are no seats by
the door is to get part of the chair through the doorway
into the seating compartment and slide, pivot, or be
dragged into the nearest seat.
As far as the facilities are concerned, these are just
out of reach and out of question. The result is that for
a long flight this problem must be anticipated by the
individual and coped with in his or her own way. As
you might guess, a little imagination goes a long way
in solving this problem.
Hotels seldom pose any problem as nearly every city
has at least one built without too many steps. But there
are few hotels that have bathroom doors twenty-eight
inches wide, and this poses a problem that cannot be put
off or ignored. The easiest solution is to put a straight
chair in the doorway-most hotels have them at the
desk-and slide from wheelchair to straight chair. The
latter can then be slid around to the proper place. The
funniest problem was a hotel elevator door in South
America that was too narrow for the wheelchair. An-
swer: every trip on the elevator resulted in the wheel-
chair and myself being compressed to get in and out.
Most people don't mean to stare, but they do. And
somebody going about the streets, hotels, shops, airports,
etc. in a wheelchair is somebody out of the ordinary.
While I don't think I will ever get quite used to being
an unusual spectacle, it does produce some very in-
teresting reactions. Everybody seems fascinated at the
business of getting down the ramp from an airplane.
Wandering around the streets of Quito or Cairo or even
Barcelona may result in attracting a Pied Piper-like
following; while in Paris, New York or Rome you may
get only a few curious glances. There may be some ratio
here between the number of wheelchairs in the city
and the attention attracted. Perhaps the payoff was
debarking from a fishing boat at a small port in Sardinia.
If there was anybody in that village who wasn't at the
waterfront they must have been bedridden.
Getting on and off boats, in and out of airplanes,
cars and through narrow doors, going over cobble-
stones, sand, mountain trails, to say nothing of through
snow or down sandy beaches into the surf to swine does
take something out of a wheelchair. Despite my 200
ounds and the tens of thousands of miles I've traveled,
he two chairs that I have had over the past seven years
-both still in use-have stood tremendous punishment.
Further, they can be repaired almost anywhere i the
world. We slipped going down stairs in Sardinia and
six spokes snapped. I took a two-hour nap, whi h I
wanted anyway, and when I awoke the spokes had een
replaced. The rough terrain around Kavalla, Gr ce,
caused one of the bolts holding the seat to break and
within half an hour this was fixed. A bicycle repair an
or an ingenious mechanic, even though they may n ver
have seen a wheelchair before, can handle just abou all
necessary repairs.
Under such conditions 1 see no reason why ny
person who can get about in a wheelchair shouldn't go
anywhere in the world. There are many willing ha ids
everywhere eager to help-sometimes too eager. I've
come closer to being decapitated by the removable a s
of my wheelchair than I was by any bullet during he
war. I just didn't speak fast enough, or in the ri ht
language, to tell. them not to lift by the arms. One irn-
portant item for the individual traveling in a wheelchair
is to learn a few simple phrases in the lingua franca as
to how to handle the chair. These would obviously n-
elude, "Don't lift by the arms," (if the arms of the ch it
are removable, that is). It should also include tell g
them how to take the chair up steps backwards by tilt' g
it backwards and pulling it up step by step. I must c i -
fess that I didn't seem able to get this across in Swah li,
but I survived Africa.
There are probably one or two places in the wo d
which are totally incompatible with a wheelchair. I
learned this about Venice one bright sunny afternoon
where I arrived after a long and rather tiring drive fro
Innsbruck. Looking forward to a quick sponge bath aid
a nice long cool drink, I was appalled to realize th it
there are nothing but steps and canals in Venice a d
that a wheelchair just couldn't navigate. A quick d -
cision took me to the Venice Lido where, even thou It
there were too many steps, it was at least inanageabl.
I also found some of the cobblestone streets of Toled ,
Spain, a little hard on the wheelchair and not reco -
mended for regular use.
Everybody seems interested although most are to
shy to show it. After helping me off an airplane a
elderly Haitian ventured, "And could this be the dreg
polio?" When I replied in the affirmative, he commente
"It is terrible, it is terrible." When I said that thing
weren't so bad if you could go where you wanted to g
his eyes brightened and he replied, "You have spoke
true."
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CPYRGHT
THE
FUNCTIONAL
HOME
FOR
EASIER
LIVING
Approved For Release 2000/05/05: CIA
Standing on e rounds 11 TO- ;Y1--ft I wj;l -
Medical Center imme diately adjacent to the Institute
is a recently comple ed, attractive, modern, one-level
house. Called "The unctional Home for; Easier Liv-
ing," it is designed pecifically for the physically dis-
abled, the elderly 4nd persons with cardiac handi-
caps. Though it looks like any other modern house,
the Functional Home is actually unique. Avery aspect
of architecture and l interior design wasl planned to
facilitate a minimum expenditure of time and energy
on the part of the occupants,
Many visitors have asked, "But why isn't this house
practical for anyone?" We agree that time and energy'
saving features are no less practical for ; the so-called
"able bodied." In an era when considerable emphasis
is placed on streamlined living, the ret oval of any
structural barriers akes living more functional and
efficient for all, irrespective of the presence or absence
of a physical handi~ap.
Consisting of a living room, two bedrooms (one, a
nursery), kitchen, dining area, bathroom and carport.,
the Functional Home serves several purposes. It is as
model for patients nd their families and visitors from
all over the world it terested in building or remodeling
homes of their own. It also provides practical training
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