An edited version of the following article appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on Saturday, July 21, 2001

A very disabled-friendly town

Mike Nemesvary
'Round the World Challenge

Mike Nemesvary, a former champion freestyle skier, is attempting to become the first quadriplegic to drive around the world - a 40,000 kilometer trek to raise funds for spinal cord injury research and rehabilitation.

Exmouth, Australia

Throughout my travels, I have attempted to meet other similarly disabled people in their homes and communities to get a better sense of the accessibility issues and attitudes they face in their day-to-day lives.

I regret that, despite my best efforts, I was unable to meet with many quadriplegics in the Middle East and India outside of the rehabilitation centres I visited. In many parts of these countries, quads are more likely to be confined to hospitals and rehab centres, or rarely able to leave their homes, or even hidden away by families, whose religious beliefs tell them that their son's or daughter's paralysis is atonement for sins.

The disabled people I did meet were mostly paraplegic. I don't want to minimize the effects of paraplegia but there is a world of difference between paraplegia and quadriplegia and, even within these categories, the effects vary from one person to the next. Christopher Reeve has the highest level of quadriplegia possible and requires a ventilator to breathe. My injury fortunately (fortune is all relative!) occurred slightly lower so that I can breathe on my own but have no function below the nipple line.

Nevertheless, I am often mistaken for a paraplegic, due in part to the technology that has allowed me to drive as well as the way in which I present myself. As a former athlete, it remains a priority to keep those parts that do still work as fit as possible and when I'm at home in Ottawa, I regularly work out to build up the muscles in my neck, shoulders and biceps. This has helped me to maintain relatively good posture and gives me the energy to do all that I do.

I also use a lot of arm gesturing when I talk which is quite unusual with quads. What most people don't realize is that the movement is generated from my biceps alone. It is often only when someone shakes my hand that they realize the extent of my disability.

So, here in Australia - a country very supportive of their disabled - it was a real pleasure to finally meet people like Cory Cooper, who has virtually the same injuries as mine.

Cory has been a quad for 12 years. At the age of 17, he dove into some shallow water at the beach and, like me, suffered a C4/5 injury. It was very interesting to meet someone with the exact same injury as myself with a mirror image of our mobility levels - I am stronger on my right arm and Cory is stronger on his left.

We met Cory in Exmouth - a lovely small tourist town on the North West Cape of Western Australia, known for whale and shark watching. Exmouth was virtually wiped out by a tropical cyclone in 1999 and is just now starting to build itself back up and is doing so in a very disabled-friendly way.

This is an amazing town that has actually made itself accessible for Cory, including supplying Cory with a custom built house complete with his required mobility modifications. If Cory had a requirement for a vehicle, the government would likely provide the funding for the vehicle and the modifications required for him to drive it.

But while we are happily meeting interesting people and discovering better accessibility in Australia, we have not left our driving challenges behind. The Australian roads are straight and flat and one can travel for 30 minutes or more without a bend or a rise in the road - this type of driving is actually far more mentally challenging than the winding, difficult roads of the Iran, Pakistan and India.

Night driving in Australia is also quite dangerous. Given that most of the wildlife is nocturnal, the roadways become a maze of kangaroo clusters and road kill and we have again decided not to risk driving at night.

And, finally, while we had hoped to be in Darwin by now, we are again delayed by more needed repairs to my old 1991 "beast" -- the rough driving conditions of Iran, Pakistan and India have taken their toll. The challenge continues...

For more information, visit www.roundtheworldchallenge.com