Intermediate
After you read this story, you can see an interview with Ben here
Modern wheelchairs are pretty fast. Most can travel comfortably at 5mph. Some can go above 10mph. But how did Ben Carpenter get an ordinary wheelchair to travel at 50 mph?
Not expecting a wheelchair
It happened like this.
Twenty-one year old Ben from Paw Paw, Michigan, USA
has muscular
dystrophy. To get around his
local town he uses a wheelchair.
One day last July, Ben was crossing a road at a
junction. At the same time, a giant lorry was pulling
out of a gas station.
The driver didn’t see Ben. His
driver’s cab was very high up. Ben,
of course, was very low down on the road. And the
driver was not expecting to see a wheelchair.
Lorry Drives Away - With Wheelchair!
The lorry continued to pull out into the road. A moment
later it bumped into the back of Ben’s
wheelchair. The chair tipped forward. Somehow, the
handles became stuck in the lorry’s radiator
grill.
Still the driver did not notice. He only saw clear road
ahead and put his foot down on the accelerator. The lorry pulled away
– with Ben, in his wheelchair, stuck to the
front.
The lorry continued down the highway. Soon it reached a
speed of 50 MPH. But the driver still knew nothing
about the man in the wheelchair. ‘I thought,
‘When is he going to stop?’ said Mr
Carpenter. ‘The next town was 70 miles
away.’
Meanwhile, cars travelling in the opposite direction
could see Mr Carpenter in his wheelchair. Many thought
they were dreaming. Others phoned the police.
