The following article appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Saturday, April 21, 2001

For quadriplegics like me, technology provides arms and legs

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.

For quadriplegics like me, technology provides arms and legs. Without it, we would lack independence, and quality of life. My lofty goal, “to focus attention on the power of technology to give freedom and independence to people with disabilities”, really hit home over the past week.

Not only did I have an ailing wheelchair, but “The Beast” (a.k.a. the truck) had some issues too. Without a wheelchair or a vehicle, I can’t make it around the block, much less around the world. “The classic man versus machine issues” team-mate George exclaimed.

First, my wheelchair. I am somewhat active (“once an athlete, always an athlete”?) and therefore a bit rough on my wheelchair. As Christine puts it, “Mike really isn't all that rough, he just uses his chair as if he wasn't using one.”

We were in Edinburgh, Scotland, taking the requisite tour of Edinburgh Castle. I was wheeling around with Christine on my lap, and while coming down the steep grade of cobblestone, bent the steel legging of a foot plate. This makes it difficult to get into proper driving position and to wheel around without my feet flying off. George tried a routine adjustment, and we heard a sickening “Schnathunk!” - an almost complete fracture of the plate.
Not to be defeated, George jerry-rigged the chair with that “greatest invention since the wheel – duct tape”.

With the chair fixed, we headed to Steering Developments in North London to look after leaky steering box seals, only to learn that the wrong part had been sent from Canada. Five hours of improvisation later, we were back on the road. Our smiles faded when I realized we had no acceleration and were stuck in first gear. With flashers on, we managed to crawl to The Noke Thistle Hotel which gave us a spectacular discount on their lovely rooms. Fate takes away - fate provides.

Returning to a fascinating garage that adapts vehicles of all sorts to accommodate drivers and passengers in wheelchairs, various mechanics tried to diagnose the problem. Acceleration cable? – nada. Electronic Gas and Brake system? – no. Transmission? - yup. Being a North American vehicle, they didn’t have the parts to fix it and to make it worse, a mechanic broke a microswitch on the wheelchair lift system. Luckily it was quickly replaced by dipping into our spares inventory.

Heading into the Easter holiday weekend, the timing for a major repair could not have been worse.

With help from some new London friends, we located a transmission installer called “GM Automatic Transmission Centre”. Not only did they specialize in North American vehicles and have the exact transmission required in stock, but were kind enough to fit us in late on Thursday afternoon just before the holiday. Wow!

But the past week has been filled with much more than fighting technology.

While driving through agricultural Ireland, we were delayed by a chain of disinfecting road blocks - the battle against foot and mouth disease continues.

On a happier note, I was invited to appear on the Kelly Show, a live one and a half hour Irish variety show along with 80's British pop stars, Paul Young and Nick Kershaw and an actress from Coronation Street. I had a good 10 minutes to talk about the “Challenge”.

Saturday we woke up at 4:00 a.m. to catch the ferry from Belfast Port to Stranraer, Scotland where we joined approximately a thousand jubilant Glasgow Celtic football “soccer” fans on their way to cheer their team to victory. Upon our safe arrival in my place of birth, Glasgow, we made our way to Southern Scottish General Hospital’s Queen Elizabeth Spinal Cord Centre. We were taken for a tour around the very progressive centre which serves most spinal cord injured people around Scotland.

Later that evening, we dined and reminisced with my Uncle Kenny, Aunt Margaret and my sole surviving grandparent, Granny Jean Ferguson. The next morning after a little sleep-in, we soon wound our way through the picturesque Scottish Highlands en route to Aberdeen. We stopped to enjoy some spectacular views, but the highlight was spotting and listening to a lone bagpiper wailing away at the top of one of the passes in the highlands.

Back in London, amongst our mechanical setbacks, we fit in several interviews, including Channel 5 - Breakfast Television. This meant getting up at 3:30 AM (remember, it takes me about 2 hours to get ready in the morning). Then more interviews - the London Evening Standard newspaper, the Julia Somerville Program - BBC Radio and a feature spot with a crew from Reuters Television who followed us around for the afternoon.

We are looking forward to a day off before we embark on our next jaunt through the “Chunnel” and onto the European Continent.

We’ve now clocked 3,780 kilometres throughout four countries ...almost 10% of the way there!

For more information about the Challenge, visit our website at http://www.roundtheworldchallenge.com