Hello folks, happy Friday! Tuesday I had errands to run that didn’t get completed because the tire (not the wheel, just the rubber tire came off the rim) popped off my wheelchair going over a crack in the sidewalk by the bank. This diary is about that incident, how it was handled, and how it got resolved.
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Monday Crimson Quillfeather
Tuesday ejoanna
Wednesday Pam from Calif
Thursday art ah zen
Friday FloridaSNMOM
Saturday FloridaSNDad
Sunday loggersbrat
Bit and I had to go to the bank, and to CVS to pick up some things and price a few others, so we went out on Tuesday morning to get that done, theoretically before it got too hot out. All was going well, until we came out of the bank and turned towards CVS. At some point, either in the parking lot or while we were transitioning between the parking lot and the sidewalk, we hit a gap in the surface angled just right to pop the wheel off the tire. (Bad sidewalks are an entirely different rant.)
Now these are solid core tires, so they don’t go flat. But you also have to *stretch* them to get them back on. Not something you can do entirely by hand. The tires in question are also only about 6 months old, so they’re still in really good shape and no where near being replaced.
I transferred out of the chair and onto the curb by the bank’s entrance so she could check on the chair. Right across the street from the bank is a medical supply store that does wheelchair repairs and sells chairs. So I sent her over there with $20 and the chair to see if they could just pop it back on really quickly. With the right tools, it’s no more difficult than changing a bicycle tire. As they’re a repair shop, they have the right tools.
By this point it’s also getting hot, because it’s Florida in August. But I figure I can last a half hour or so in the heat without it affecting me too badly (getting over heated can get my FND spiked up, one of the triggers for me). She walked across the 4 lane road with divider with the chair and went into the shop. Not 3 minutes later she’s coming back out, with wheelchair, and the tire still slung across her body.
They wanted $65 to put the tire back on the rim. You read that right. $65. I happen to know this is what that same shop charges for a used tire that you are buying from them, including installation on the chair, because I asked last year when I was looking at replacing the tire on an old chair. I didn’t need a new tire, I just needed the existing tire to be put back on the chair. Something that would take maybe 10-15 minutes at the most. According to people I have talked to since, medical equipment techs typically get from $16-$20 per hour, for the record, so it wasn’t based on the salary of the tech either, and since all I needed was about 15 minutes of labor, $65 is entirely over priced.
I didn’t pay them $65 to put the tire back on my chair. I called a cab ($10) and went home and cut our shopping trip short. Then I went on Amazon and ordered a set of tire spoons ($9) to keep in my backpack, because we’d had a screwdriver in it for this type of thing, but it had been needed for a household repair and removed, and never wandered it’s way back.
Bit had trouble getting it back on at first, until she and her brother walked to the dollar store and picked up a pack of zip ties for a buck (to keep the tire from slipping off on the opposite side while you’re levering it onto the frame on the other). Then she got it done in about… 15 minutes. The zipties now live in my backpack. So will the tire spoons when they finally get here (they were *supposed* to be here today, but are delayed, per UPS) they will go into my backpack as well.
So we spent $20, with half of that being cab fair and most of the other half being tire spoons to put the tire back on the rim. And the medical equipment store didn’t see a dime of it. Nor will they. Ever.
If I’d been completely on my own and unable to put that tire back on the chair, like so many are, I would have had to cough up that $65, because the only bike shop in town went out of business due to Covid. Or I could have called the original company the chair was ordered from and wait a month until they had an appointment open to come do it, and charge my medicaid for it, if medicaid would cover it (which is questionable), otherwise I’d be paying for *that* house call, however much that would be. And I would have been literally stuck in the house for a month with no way to get shopping or anything else done.
I’ve since looked up prices for getting a tire changed at a bike shop. $10-$20 including the tube for regular tires. $20 for specialty tires. Which is exactly what I figured I would/should be paying for it. It’s not that I expected it done for free, I just expected to be treated fairly and not like I was stuck with whatever they wanted to charge because it’s a ‘specialty service’. How many other disabled people in my town are they shafting this way? People who may not have 17 and 25 year olds capable of looking up how to change a wheelchair tire on Youtube and figuring out the best way to do it, and then get it done?
Why should it cost $10-$20 dollars to change the tire on a bike, which are mainly used for exercise and fun (except for those who rely on them for transportation to and from work, etc of course), but $65 for a medically necessary wheelchair tire that allows someone to say, buy groceries and get to doctor’s appointments?
It took her a bit longer than in this video, but then it was only the first time she’s done it. It also takes quite a bit of upper body strength, even with the lever or spoon.
