Technology should have saved a life
        By Deborah Kendrick
        January 17, 1999

There it was, in a news roundup of the havoc wrought by the welcome-to-1999
snowstorms that hit many states.

It was just one tiny mention among the ruins, and it torments my imagination.

Justin Bradley, a 22-year-old college student, left a New Year's Eve party
at 2 a.m. Friends offered him a ride but he declined. Like many
quadriplegics, the power of his electric wheelchair gave him confidence and
independence. But the chair got stuck in the snow; Justin Bradley froze to
death.

He was doing well at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, sources said,
just as he had done the previous year at the Hiram G. Andrews Center, a
comprehensive rehabilitation facility in western Pennsylvania.Bradley
attended the center's college-preparatory program, living in a dorm and
learning to be independent.

Up to 450 people attend the center at any given time, and their stays might
last a year. They learn to use equipment that helps them become as
independent as possible.

Voice-activated environmental control units enable students to turn on the
lights or the stereo, turn down the heat, or "talk'' the computer through
research for an assignment.

"Students learn the extra skills they need here before going off to learn
all about the academic environment,'' said Larry Tweed, one of the center's
administrators.

They need to learn to manage their attendant care providers to be sure, for
instance, that they have someone scheduled to assist them when it's time to
go to bed or when they want to go to a concert over the weekend.

"So many little things our students have to learn to manage that
able-bodied people take for granted,'' Tweed said.

"Justin made quite an impression on a great number of people here,'' Tweed
said, as evidenced by the fact that many of the center's teachers and
students made the 31/2-hour drive to Bradley's funeral.

I keep circling round the issues of independence and vulnerability,
searching for some way in which we might learn from this tragedy.

Technology enables a quadriplegic to verbally command his Barenaked Ladies
CD to sound off; technology lets him or her pull up in the warmth of a dorm
room to a computer screen and "tell'' the Web browser to check out a topic
at the university library. But is there no technology to call for help when
your wheelchair overturns in snow?

Many people with disabilities carry pagers and mobile phones. I don't know
if Bradley had either, but that doesn't matter, really. There's no mobile
phone on the market that speaks its maddeningly informative visual screen
to users who can't see, and none respond to the voice command of a user who
can't manipulate those tiny touch-tone buttons.

What if ruminations are pointless. Accidents happen. And no one can ever
take every possible precaution and enjoy life, too.

But I keep thinking about all that technology. Maybe one bit of good that
could emerge from this sadness would be that the developers of technology
might begin to put people with disabilities into their visions when they're
at their drawing boards.

For those of us with disabilities, each new gadget triggers the question,
"Can we use it, too?''

Mobile phones have displays that can tell a user everything from the length
of a call to how many calls have been made. But you have to see that
display to make use of it.

Many electronic devices confound people with disabilities because they
employ cue tones too low for them to hear, switches too tiny to manipulate,
or print too small to read. These exclusions of a minority of 51 million
Americans have nothing to do with technological capability.

If we can make Barbie Dolls that can "say'' 200 things and sell one for
$20, we can make a telephone or  microwave oven announce the information
that is on display screens. If we can make a Furby talk by clapping our
hands, we can make a mobile phone that calls 911 from a voice crying help.

Including people with disabilities in the creativity phase of technology
development just can't be that hard.

Deborah Kendrick, a Cincinnati writer and advocate for people with
disabilities, is online at: [log in to unmask]


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