Posted on 07/06/2016 12:40:58 PM PDT by rey
SACRAMENTO — A disability rights advocate drowned in a bizarre accident when she fell into the Sacramento River in her wheelchair after watching Fourth of July fireworks.
Laurie Hoirup's husband, Jacob Hoirup, tells the Sacramento Bee (http://bit.ly/29mKqJs) the accident happened after she and several other people were getting off a pontoon at the Sacramento Marina Monday night after watching fireworks on the boat.
He says the 60-year-old woman was on a ramp between the boat and dock when the boat shifted and caused the ramp to fall into the water, bringing her, her husband and some others down with it.
Jacob Hoirup says he tried to save her but the wheelchair was too heavy and he ran out of oxygen.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Hoirup as chief deputy director of the State Council on Developmental Disabilities. She also published several books about living with disabilities.
Been through the worst part of doing that. Just as I was fading out I broke the surface, gulped a little air, and managed to get to shore.
When it's happening and your body involuntarily exhales and starts to inhale water, the body panics and the thrashing happens. Then it stops and you kind of relax and think, 'well OK, I guess this is it.'
Water coming out of your lungs on all fours on the beach burns like fire. Wasn't my time yet, I guess.
My thought exactly. It's true enough, but you and I are sensible people.
Being an ADA advocate (or, women's rights advocate, or really, any kind of advocate) means "Anything you can do, I can do better". Even if its completely senseless.
The "If you tell me this is a bad idea, you're a hateful racist/sexist/bigot/etc" is implied here. Sometimes its stated, sometimes not.
Poor woman. I admire her desire to live life to her fullest, and if I ever find myself in her situation, I would probably do the same.
But I will say: I would not go on a smaller boat in that fashion. I would go up a gangway for a cruise ship, etc. but I don’t think I would go on smaller types of boats. Even healthy people slip, fall, etc. when embarking and debarking those things.
Also, I understand why people would be advocates for the ADA, but it is a typical piece of liberal legislation that was created with all those good intentions, but is so full of loopholes that it is wildly abused and misused in the most costly and fantastic ways.
I understand someone who has a handicap being an advocate for it, I just don’t think it should have been passed into law the way it was.
Maybe she was, but that’s not going to do any good if you are strapped into a heavy wheelchair.
They were docked and exiting the boat though, so they may have thought they were safe and already taken them off anyway.
I have to assume she was if the husband couldn’t pull her out because of the chair. I mean, humans float and wheelchairs don’t, so if they weren’t attached they should have parted ways when she went in the water.
A case where men no longer carrying blades costs a life.
“But then, why is waterboarding such torture?”
When you drown, you will black out from oxygen deprivation pretty quickly and you don’t feel any pain after that. With water boarding, there is no oxygen deprivation, so you can’t black out, yet your brain still thinks that you are drowning.
Wow, she published several books about living with disabilities but made no mention of using a life jacket?
Wheelchair bound but not using a life jacket? She suicided.
I would rather go feet first into the wood chipper that the thomas/clinton inhumanity.
“What about a threesome with Helen Thomas and Hillary Clinton?”
That doesn’t kill you, it only makes you pray for death.
Sounds about what I’ve heard.
I looked for the video right away. For the guy to say he couldn’t lift the chair made me think she was strapped in. What makes me disappointed are all the comments about her. Look, she died, it was tragic, can’t people lay off the snarky political stuff and just say something like, ‘good for her for trying to live her life when she’s got some awful disease.” Just read the story, watch five minutes of the video and try to be a decent human being and say a prayer for her and her family. I’ll grant anyone it is legitimate to wonder why she risked her life on a boat like this, but for the sake of decency.....please try to be decent.
to which napscoordinator answers:
That was my first thought. I don’t know what he was thinking except how much insurance money is he getting? That might explain a lot. He has to think it is a pain in the neck to have to care for her. I wonder if there wasn’t any “help” getting her killed.
It must be quite a burden, omnipotence. Without being there or hearing the details - you both jump in with such nasty assumptions. Must suck to be you guys - for wherever you go, there you are. You deserve yourselves.
Mother Nature is in for it now!
It’s a given the Left will blame her for not providing safe ADA access to large bodies of water.
to which ucansee2 answers:
Did you read my post #16, or in your omnipotence decide to have a knee jerk reaction just so you could make a big jerk out of yourself ?
Please ignore my post to you. I posted to the wrong person.
I’ve done that many times. Have a great night!
I think it was a pontoon boat (at least the excerpt used the word “pontoon”). They are very stable — I’m surprised that the accident occurred. It’s not like a typical small boat. The gangplank must have been quite wide to accommodate her wheelchair, too.
Poor woman, indeed. You are right about her not letting a severe disability get in the way of enoying life to the fullest.
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