Snowed In

by Jared Wayland

In some of my previous blogs, I have mentioned that inclement weather can be especially tough for a person with a physical disability. Living in Southern Ontario, we are somewhat prone to 1 or 2 large snow storms every winter… sometimes more, sometimes less - but they happen inevitably.

As my fellow Ontarians know, this past week we got hit with a MASSIVE blizzard – one of the quickest and biggest I can remember in my lifetime. About a foot-and-a-half of snow came down in a matter of 24 hours, and we were quite literally snowed in. Going outside would have been impossible at first, because we couldn’t open our doors due to snow drifts that were about waist-high! I am unable to shovel due to my disability, and my partner is also unable to right now because she just gave birth a few weeks ago, so help had to come from the outside. Another issue was that none of the streets had been plowed yet, and cars could absolutely not leave their driveways (if you could even find them under all the snow!)

At this point, I was starting to feel very “trapped” inside. As a person living with a disability who uses a wheelchair, I am always looking for a safe and quick way out of spaces in the case of emergency, which I hope never happens. With no way out, it is very easy to let the mind wander to a lot of “what ifs”. What if there is a fire? What if there is a medical emergency? What would I do? Unfortunately, despite what some people may think, there is no magical service that comes along and clears the driveways or pathways for those of us living with disabilities. Many of us are left to our own devices to figure it out, and whether that means having friends and family close by or having to pay out of pocket - it is up to us to deal with.

Having a plan is key! The best advice I can give in this situation is to have a plan in place long before a snow event like this happens, and luckily for us, we did. We are extremely lucky to have both mine and my partner’s parents living close by, and it is fair to say that our dads came to the rescue. At about 7AM, my dad donned his winter gear and walked the 4 streets over to our house. A walk that would normally take him about 5 minutes now took over 30! When he arrived at our house, he shoveled an initial path from the door to my outdoor lift, and from the bottom of the lift to the driveway. Just in case the dreaded emergency happened - I now had a way to drive my Stretto out of the house and out to the driveway. A few hours later and with the snow still falling and building up, my father-in-law walked over as well - a walk that is at least double that of what my dad did earlier. He got here and shoveled outside for about 4 hours and cleared as much snow as he possibly could for us. Now, if necessary, we were finally able to get my Stretto outside to access our van (although, it wasn’t going anywhere in that weather).

Finally the snow is starting to melt around here, and most streets are relatively accessible to traffic again… the sidewalks are a different story, but we’ll leave that for another rant! A feeling of calm has come over me, knowing that I have a safe way in and out of the house.

Last but not least, a HUGE shoutout to my dad and my partner’s dad (and our moms!) for always making sure we are taken care of when it comes to a massive snowstorm. They are incredible, and the support and love they give us is amazing and we couldn’t imagine doing it without them!