The following is a story submitted by Daniel L from Camden.
On 10 May 2025, I returned to Sydney from Singapore aboard Qantas Flight QF2. What I hoped would be a smooth homecoming transit turned into yet another disheartening reminder of how easily mobility, dignity, and personal property can be compromised and thrown to the side, out of sight from an unknowing biologically healthy public.
At baggage claim, I was reunited with my 70kg electric narrow-width wheelchair but instead of relief that my independence has been returned, I felt that quiet dose of stress delivered familiar to too many wheelchair users: deep gouges marred all four sides of my chair and damage to one of my castors. The powder coating, which is my chair’s protective skin, had been stripped to bare metal, almost as if my chair had been dragged across rendered cement wall for miles.
Then came the ticking noise, and worse was what appeared to be a seized bearing.
When I was transferring the chair into my SUV, the front left castor wouldn’t spin. The bearing had seized completely. It seemed as if the grease had been stripped out or the bearing had melted from some unknown exposure, something extreme like high-pressure steam. Repairing it took nearly four hours of replacing the castor, refinishing the powder coating, and restoring functionality.
My mobility was treated like a base commodity, like coal being dumped into a bin, instead of my freedom, that is, my legs.
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