12/99 

How the "Green Gloves" Saved my Life 
By Dave Gould

The other day I decided to get in my rugby chair and throw the ball around to see how I would feel after not playing for 5 weeks, and to help with the withdrawals I was experiencing. After about a half-hour I decided to go for a push so I could convince my mind that my ailing body really does need some time off, as sick and nonsensical as that seems. 

Anyway, I head off down the street with my Walkman blaring Rocky's "Gonna Fly Now" like it's 1990, and I can do anything and I'm ready to take on the rugby world! I don't like pushing on the street , so whenever I can I'll get on the sidewalk as it's much safer than trying to play keep away with the traffic. So I thought! 

On this day however, the sidewalk would prove anything but safe. Let me try and set the scene for you. The sidewalk runs parallel to the woods, which naturally is sloped that way. There is a lot of brush and weeds at the edge that is great camouflage for the 15 foot embankment that it conceals. Now this of course is no secret to me, I have been pushing by this area for about 10 years. I was well aware of what it would mean if I found myself at the bottom of that ravine. I could see the headlines "Rugby Player Survives Fall - Lives Three Weeks on half a Power Bar and Rain Water." 

What made this day different from countless other nondescript days when I had passed by this particular area was that due to water erosion, one part of the sidewalk was about 2-1/2 inches higher than the other. As I pushed towards it I slowed down to assess the situation, and decided that I could pop my front casters up onto the higher part of the sidewalk and simply push my chair up the small incline and be on my way without giving it much thought. Wrong! Once my casters were on the high side of the sidewalk, I immediately found myself on the single anti-tip wheel, which in turn made me lose all control of my chair and where I wanted to go. 

Now having a sloping sidewalk is a great idea for water drainage, but not for the the situation I found myself in. What happened next would have been a really bad dream, the only problem was that I was living it. I knew I was in trouble as I slowly slid sideways toward my impending doom, knowing that there wasn't a thing I could do to stop it. As I neared the far edge of the sidewalk, I knew it was only a matter of seconds before I would be resting in my new home 15 feet down the slope. I thought to myself even if I was lucky enough to survive the fall, which was quite possible (we all know what abuse a rugby chair can take), there was no way anyone would see me, and it was unlikely anyone would hear my cries of despair. 

As I fell off the sidewalk onto my side and into the bushes, I started to slide further down the hill. I thought to myself "man I may never get a chance to play rugby again," well maybe I wasn't thinking of rugby at that point. As luck would have it I managed to get hung up on some brush which stopped my descent for the moment, which sort of brightened my outlook on things. However, I wasn't too confident and thought "one wrong move and I could be finished." 

After a few minutes of wondering how the heck I got myself in this predicament, I decided I was fairly secure where I was. I managed to flip myself onto my back without slipping to the bottom of the ravine. So there I was, still firmly strapped into my chair on the side of a hill, hanging in some brush about 3 feet down and 25 feet from the street.

I think it was the great Matthew Modine who said to Gomer Pyle in the movie Full Metal Jacket when he caught him in the latrine with a loaded M1 carbine, "You're in a world of shit," well he had company on this day! 

Now the craze around the rugby league has been the introduction of a new glove that dramatically improves grip when handling the ball, or pushing the chair. I must admit that it took me a while to give them an honest try because they are a bit different from your conventional gloves. Eventually I got used to them, and have been using them for over a year now. Thankfully! I did hear that a few people weren't to keen on their bright green color. Well, I say they could only be better if they were public works department orange, because that bright green color saved my life! 

After laying on my back for what must have been hours (actually about 15 minutes) franticly waving that unsightly green glove, the only thing that could be seen from a chance passerby, my ordeal was about to come to an end. My rescuer was a man named Dennis who just happened to notice this arm waving with a green glove attached to it as he drove by. He stopped, put his window down, and asked what's going on? Well, I must say more than a few sarcastic comebacks ran through my mind after hearing that question. "Oh I'm just taking a rest on my back here in the weeds" was one, but you know timing is everything, and I'm smart enough to know that wasn't the time for sarcasm. Thankfully, Dennis pulled me out of my desperate situation, and Cindy and her lovely daughter Tara who had stopped to see what all the commotion was about, very generously spent ten minutes picking all the twigs and leaves off of me, and made sure I was all right. 

When I finally got myself together I politely asked Dennis if he would help me over those 2-1/2 inches that had caused me such grief some 20 minutes before. I surely wasn't going to attempt that on my own again, and I was on my way as if it never really happened. Maybe it never did, but what a hell of a way to sell some gloves! I got to take a breath after reliving the horror. I guess there's never a dull moment in Quadsville!

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