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They're going fast!
Posted on 10/17/2005 8:45:17 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
TULSA - A multiple sclerosis patient enjoying a day on the water drowned Friday after her motorized wheelchair plunged from a boat ramp into Keystone Lake. Susan K. Scott, 56, of Sand Springs was strapped into the chair, said her daughter, Dana Justus. Scott could not be freed and drowned as her husband dived in to try to rescue her.
"They couldn't find her," said Justus, 33, of Tulsa. "It was 25 feet of water, and the wheelchair was very, very heavy. Other divers tried to help her, but they couldn't. It was horrible. It was horrible."
Scott, a mother of two, had suffered from multiple sclerosis for "years and years," Justus said. It prevented her from working outside the home and ultimately put her in a wheelchair.
Even so, Scott remained positive and outgoing -- "the organizer of everybody," Justus said.
"She was a fighter," Justus said. "She took all the curve balls life gave her and always had a smile. ... She was always the biggest duck in the puddle, even when she couldn't walk."
But the disease did impose limits, and although she always wanted to get out and be active, her mobility made that difficult, Justus said.
Friday, though, the weather was nice, and Scott's husband had recently retired, Justus said. A fishing trip was in order.
About 7:15 p.m. the fishing was done, and Scott and her family pulled into the marina to disembark. As Scott guided her wheelchair across a ramp from the pontoon boat to the dock, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said, the chair slipped off and dumped her into the lake.
Justus said the chair -- a high end, mechanized version equipped with a lift -- actually pushed the boat away from the dock, causing the accident.
"Those motorized wheelchairs are such a godsend for people with disabilities," Justus said. "But they're also very, very dangerous for people with limited mobility and hard to control. ... My mom, she always had a stubborn streak. She thought she could drive that thing.
"But God, they can get away from you."
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They're going fast!
Uh... who was supposed to rope the boat to the dock?
Very sad.
So are we all, my brother.
What a freak accident :(
suicide or "assisted" suicide?
I can hear the hyaenas (lawyers) licking their chops on this one... Sue the wheelchair company, the people who built the dock/ramp, someone must pay.
There's a commercial for one of the motorized chairs that runs on TV that shows a couple in chairs at the edge of a scenic overlook that resembles the Grand Canyon; everytime it runs, I cringe and my groin tightens instinctively.
What if the boat capsized or she somehow slipped off? What was the plan? Was she wearing a life vest? Why was she strapped in while over water?
Doesn't pulling one of those heavy motorized chairs
in and out of a pontoon boat sound kind of difficult?
It just seems like a prescription for disaster.
ouch ouch ouch....
That sounds absolutely awful....
She was on a boat ramp, not on a boat.
But the question of why she was strapped in is still a good one.
***************
Me too. Danger! Danger! Danger! may as well be the soundtrack.
She was on a boat ramp, getting off the boat.
This accident could just as easily have happened while she was on the boat -- either the boat capsizing, sinking, or her sliding off the deck -- is my point.
Carolyn
How awful. Having said that, don't worry; the government will mandate quick-release straps for all wheelchairs (after the lawsuit, of course).
That's a question that's unanswerable. Trust me. I know.
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They're going fast!
It doesn't say the motorized wheelchair was even on the boat when it was adrift, nor does it say that she was strapped into it if it was.
It could have been used as a transportation device, though obviously not a good idea.
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