Lesson 28: Unit 56 AGAINST THE OODS

Lesson 28: Unit 56 AGAINST THE OODS

David: Today we talked about people who’ve managed to do something against the odds.

Natalie: People who’ve had difficulties but have still been successful.

Kevin: People like this man. Mike Haynes who works as an instructor in wheelchair sports.

David: What sort of people achieve things against the odds?

Natalie: I think they’re people who refuse to let their problems control their lives.

Kevin: That’s right. They decide to face their difficulties or disabilities. Their disabilities don’t prevent them from doing what they want to do.

David: To me they’re people who try to do something they can be proud of. And they keep trying to do it, in spite of their problems.

They try to do something.

They keep trying to do it.

Natalie: Is there something that you’ve done that you are very proud?

1.    Actually two things one is completing college the second would be becoming a certified interpreter for the deaf, because I taught myself sign language.

2.    I’ve raised three wonderful children.

3.    I’m very proud of still being in football after 15 years.

4.    I was in school play last year and I’m proud of that.

5.    I’m written a book with a colleague and I’m quite proud of it. It’s quite nice to see it in people’s houses. I said gosh! I rate that.

An instructor at a rehabilitation centre.

St. David is a rehabilitation centre, for people who have had injuries and we’re getting rehabilitated to get back into everyday life and back to the community. Wheelchair sport is based under therapeutic recreation. It’s getting people back to what they did before in life. I run a fitness centre for people with disabilities. It’s specifically designed for people with disabilities it’s one of three in the country. I’ve set people up with individualized weight training programs. To increase our strength and more functionally to get them more independent in life the key to independence once you’re disabled is string.

I thoroughly enjoy my work; it’s not even work to me; it’s a lot of fun.

It involves helping people.	It involves training people.
It involves a lot of encouragement.	I thoroughly enjoy my work.
It´s a lot of fun.

I play wheelchair tennis. I’m a nationally-ranked wheelchair tennis player. I travel all round the nation playing wheelchair tennis. I play wheelchair basketball. We travel around the nation playing wheelchair basketball. Wheelchair basketball is just like college basketball. We use the same rules that they use. We use a standard basketball court.

Wheelchair sport is designed to keep the essence of the sport, so that you’re playing the same sport that you were before. I am a scuba diver. I take a yearly trip to Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles to scuba dive. A lot of quadriplegics go scuba diving; they may not even be able to brush their teeth in the morning but they can scuba dive. It takes you out of your wheelchair, and it frees you from gravity, and allows you to roam as an able-bodied person.

When you’re looking at the coral, you’re sitting there looking at the micro view of things. You can sit there and look at one patch of coral, and you may be looking at something and not even see it. If you take an experienced diver down with you, he can go in and pull things out and show you little nudibranches and little Christmas tree worms and all sorts of neat things that you don’t even see. It was one of the things that I’ve done since my injury that I did not do before. It was like a great accomplishment. I was really scared.

It takes you out of your wheelchair.

It frees you from gravity.

You may be looking at something and not even see it.

David: Mike Hayness is an extraordinary man, especially when you consider what happened to him. One night Mike was driving home with some friends and got into an argument with another driver at some traffic lights. Mike drove off but the man followed him. Eventually, Mike got out of his car to see what the man wanted. This is what happened next.

Mike: I walked towards him, held up my hands and said: “Hey, what’s the matter?? He pulled out a 357 and, as I turned to run – thinking the whole time that he was not going to shoot me – he did shoot me. While I was on the ground, he shot at me again. I lifted up (I was instantly paralysed). I lifted up and the next bullet went underneath me. I dragged myself behind a car. And then he laughed and drove off. He’s serving 20 years for attempted murder in Huntsville, which is a penitentiary here in Texas.

The next year I spent… Well, I spent 11 months and two weeks in the hospital. I went through numerous operations, 14 in all. And then, about a year and a half later, I went through a deep depression where I thought of myself as half a man and half a freak. You know, I didn’t think I was a human being. You know, I didn’t think I was a human being. You lose a part of yourself, and you remember how you were before, and you were before, and you just don’t feel the same.

There’s a lot of things that you miss. But then I didn’t know all the opportunities that were open to me at the time. And I basically had to re-invent the wheel. There were other people doing the same thing I was doing out there, but they were in different parts of the country. I had to learn everything by myself. I had to learn how to drive.

All the resources and things that were available… there was nothing standard; there was no information available: so I had to go out there and find all this information. So now I want to be there for somebody. I want to be a resource for these people so, once they get hurt, they don’t have to go through what I did: they don’t have to go through six or seven years of not knowing all this different information.

I want to catch them right when they get here to the rehabilitation centre, to tell them, to show them films of people doing great things achieving things; so that they can set their sights early in life once they’re hurt, and not have to go through that deep depression that I went through. I mean, I’m sure they’re still going to go through a depression, but I don’t want it to be as bad as mine was.

I had to re-invent the wheel.

I want to be a resource…

WORD BANK

Able-bodied	Sano	Build up	Aumentar
Disability	Discapacidad/minusvalía	Disabled	Discapacitado/minusválido
Operation	Operación	Paralysed	Paralizado
Strength	Fuerza	Weight-training	Entrenamiento con pesas
Wheelchair	Silla de ruedas	Bring up	Criar/educar
Certified	Diplomado/titulado	Face	Mirar hacia/enfrentarse
In spite of	A pesar de	Interpreter	Intérprete
Involve	Requerir/implicar	Prevent	Impedir
Raise/Bring up	Criar	Accomplishment	Logro
Attempted murder	Intento de asesinato	Bullet	Bala
Consider	Considerar	Depression	Depresión
Drag	Arrastrarse	Esscence	Esencia/lo esencial
Extraordinary	Extraordinario	Freak	Monstruo
Gravity	Gravedad	Micro view		Vista microscópica/  Perspectiva microscópica
Nation	Nación	Neat		Genial/
Nudribranch	Nudibránquios	Patch		Trozo/pedazo
Penitentiary	Penitenciaría/cárcel	Quadriplégics		Tetrapléjicos
Ranked	Clasificado	Roam		Vagar
Serving 20 years	Cumpliendo 20 años	Shoot		Disparar
Re-invent  the wheel	Volver a empezar	Resources		Recursos
Set their sights	Fijar sus objetivos	Shot		Disparo
odds	Posibilidades