"Terrorists: On A Wing And A Wheel"
By Richard L. Bruno

Dick Bruno

Since the airlines have been forced to allow us wheelchair users to fly sans attendant and waivers of liability, air travel has never been easier. You just roll up to the gate, get your seat assignment and fly away. Hell, we even get to board first!

However, I am very concerned that flying may be a little too easy for us rollers. With domestic terrorism on the rise, I'm honestly worried about the cursory examination I get when going through airport security. If I were a terrorist I could smuggle just about anything smaller than a tank to the gate without anyone being the wiser.

The reason is that my chair can't go through the metal detectors and I have to be searched by hand. First of all, the security personnel are usually embarrassed that they have to search me at all. Their downcast eyes say, "Geeze, you're disabled. What harm could you do?" Security personnel also seem loath to make physical contact with my body. I am politely asked to lean forward and my upper torso is furtively patted down. But when it comes to my lower half, it's as if the security personnel are afraid to touch me and thereby "catch" my disability. I have had many a frisk where a guard's hands touch my pants, but never actually make contact with my legs, to which I could have a stiletto and snub nose .38 strapped for all they'd know.

Then there's my wheelchair. Like many of you, I have a pouch betwixt my legs containing my wallet and assorted bolts and wrenches. No airport security person has ever seen or searched the pouch, let alone looked under my chair. I assure you that my little pouch is big enough for a 9 mm handgun and an extra clip for my Uzi, which I could have duct-taped to the underside of my Combi cushion, for all the security personnel would know.

But when it comes to smuggling weapons onto a plane, a manual chair is small potatoes. It's a power wheelchair that would be a terrorist's dream! My battery-powered friends tell me they get an even more cursory search at airports than I do. Security personnel never look under power chairs either, let alone open the battery boxes, which are themselves big enough to hold enough plastic explosive to vaporize a 747.

Please don't think I am suggesting that you would ever use your wheelchair for evilness instead of goodness. And don't be upset that I'm telling terrorists something they don't know. It's not like I'm giving them the plans for making a wheelchair-shaped atomic bomb. I am honestly worried. Very worried. The FBI, FAA, MI-5, the R.C.M.P, Interpol- every law enforcement agency- needs to know that terrorists or homegrown anarchists in rented wheelchairs could wreak havoc in the air. Law enforcement officials must realize that letting anyone in a wheelchair just slip through airport security is downright dangerous, and may someday be tragic.

But we can't depend only on the authorities to make air travel safe. Those of us with disabilities must do our part. So the next time you're about to breeze through airport security with only a pat and smile, lock the brakes on your chair and show the guards all of the hiding places they've missed: under your chair, the pouches, the battery boxes. Sure, it may slow you down. But someday, when airport security stops a plane from being hijacked by an ersatz quad or by a pseudo para, you'll have yourself to thank. And we'll thank you too.

Dr. Richard L. Bruno is a wheelchair user and frequent - and uncowed- air traveler.

Dr. Bruno is Director of the Post-Polio Institute at the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Call (201) 894-3724 to contact Dr. Bruno or email him at PPSENG@AOL.COM for more information on PPS.