50mph is wheelie, wheelie fast
The Daily Telegraph — A truck driver travelled for several miles along a US highway after unwittingly picking up an extra passenger when a wheelchair became hooked onto the front of his cab.
The handles of 21-year-old Ben Carpenter’s electric wheelchair became tangled in the grille of the lorry which had stopped briefly at a red light.
Horrified motorists alerted police as they watched the wheelchair hurtling along the two-lane highway in Michigan at speeds of up to 50mph.
[…]
Mr Carpenter, who has muscular dystrophy, was unharmed, but said afterwards he thought he might not make it through the ride.
“I was probably thinking that this is going to keep going and not stop anywhere,” he told a local television station.
However, the only casualty of his trip was the contents of a drink he was holding when the truck picked him up.
His wheelchair escaped damage except for losing most of the rubber on its wheels.
“It’s a very bad story that ended very well,” Mr Carpenter’s father Donald said. “We’re just thrilled that he’s still around.”
cates: amazing. he only spilled his drink. i would have spilled my entrails into my underpants.
jay: also, a new north american landspeed record in the wheelchair division. if only this had happened on the salt flats…
dan: what’s the big deal? michael j fox did this in back to the future, and that was what, 20 years ago? 25? and he’s got parkinson’s. i’m sorry, cates. I just don’t see why this is news.