For a white cane user, there are many small
tricks as to the safest way to use the cane. Some people use the white cane
only for ID, but for me and for others like me, we use the cane as a tool for
mobility. There are different guidelines for using a cane in different
situations.
In the last few weeks since my surgery, I
have been reminded of one of those situations. While normally I tend to use
stairs or sometimes escalators, some difficulty with movement has recently seen
me making more use of elevators. There is a definite technique for this. Always
the cane or guide should precede the person with limited or no sight into the elevator.
Just because the elevator doors open, doesn’t necessarily mean that the
elevator is waiting inside the opening doors. We need to use the cane to scout
out the path in front. In this way we can check for hazards just as an army
scout checks out the path ahead for the foot soldiers who are coming behind.
My first lesson with this was when I began
using a white cane. It was at an LRT station in Edmonton. We were to take the
elevator to the lower level of the station. Knowing the small space of the
elevator, I quickly folded my cane and stepped inside. My mobility instructor
who was fast on my heels, gasped in shock. When Janice had gathered herself
together she told me of the occasion when a young blind male had done a similar
thing but had stepped not onto the floor of the elevator, but out into the
empty space where the elevator should have been. There had been no warning to
say that the mechanism wasn’t working that particular day.
“Never, ever,” instructed Janice, “step
into the elevator unless you first put forward your cane or are led by a
guide.”
I have remembered the lesson. All too
often, sighted people will step aside to allow the person with the cane to go
first. While the manners of these good citizens are impeccable, it behooves the
non-sighted person to remember that common sense and white cane awareness at
all times comes before any displays of social niceties, chivalry and politeness.
That was scary.
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