Why people shouldn't use handicapped doors when they aren't actually handicapped.

Every Tuesday and Thursday you can find me shuttling the kids to and from their swimming lessons; which happen to take place at a local recreation center.

Now, we all know about the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, right? It covers alot of ground, but one of the major sections covered is Title III, which provides for reasonable accommodation of public and commercial facilities. What this means in most cases are ramps in addition to stairs, Braille signage, automatic door entrances, yada, yada, yada.

This particular recreation center has been retrofit (as it should) with automatic door entrances (I'm sure you've all seen these a million times, in a million places). The center has two separate front doors that lead to a small foyer, then two more doors that lead into the lobby of the recreation center.

Sis and I were entering the building through the set of doors on the left. As we made our way through the first door (and into the very small foyer) a young girl hit the automatic door entrance, which automatic opens both of the (very heavy) doors on the left.

The doors that Sis and I were in the middle of entering.

In an instance, Sis looked back to let me something as the second door opened.

She looked back and SMACKED into the corner of the VERY HEAVY entrance door.

SMACKED (see my very detailed and exact drawing to get a better idea of how the whole thing went down).

Now, I'm not upset that it happened, really. It was the response, OR LACK OF, from the other mother. The distance between where they were and where we were was no more than 10 feet. TOPS.

My child screamed. We blocked the doorway. She cried. She screamed some more. Another mother in front of us heard what happened and got us ice. Sis cried some more. 

I was able to take a peak at the damage. While the bump was quickly developing, the cut wasn't deep enough to need stitches and her eyes weren't dilated.

The other mother, who I turned around to look at, completely avoided eye contact. COMPLETELY. All I wanted was a simple, "Oh my goodness, is she okay?" or "I'm so sorry that happened." A simple acknowledgment would have been nice.

Even if she didn't realize what happened, anyone close who hear Sis scream would have stopped to see if we needed help (see: other mother described above). So, I can only assume she knew what accidentally happened and avoided us. 

After a few minutes, Sis was able to calm down. We decided that she could still go to her lesson (trust me, many more tears would have erupted). A few hours later, the only lasting impressions for her is that her "owie feels squishy" when she touches it.

So I told her to not touch it.

And no more using handicapped automatic doors. Somebody might get hurt.

Comments

[The Sister]

Grrrr. What is wrong with people? Did she think you would sue if she admitted that it was her kid's fault by having basic human compassion, asking if Sis was ok, and apologizing?

You might not remember, but I still do: When you were in kindergarten or preschool, sme mother accidently bumped into you with her car (!) in the parking lot at Trinity. I mean, super minor, you were fine, it was more a startle then anything else. But I still remember how she called Mom and Dad that night to apologize and ask how you were (I think we were in carpool so someone else was taking us home) and then brought you a stuffed animal the next day. THAT'S how it's done.