RICHMOND, Va. — 25-year-old Sara Robertson survived a car accident in June of 2014, but a spinal cord injury left her paralyzed from the waist down.
She has spent the past nine years adapting to life in a wheelchair, and, while she can drive on her own and works full time as a school social worker, she said there are still physical barriers that make it difficult for her to get around.
"Curb cuts are challenging," she noted. "Heavy doors are very challenging, not wide enough doorways. There are some places unfortunately, that I run into, I would say on the daily, locally, where I live and just all around, it's not specific to one place, but where there are no ramps, there are no accessible parking."
July is Disability Pride Month, and this month marks 33 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law.
The ADA guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public spaces, employment and transportation, but one Central Virginia woman says there's still more work to be done.
It also requires businesses built after 1990 to be constructed to code, which includes accommodations for those with disabilities, and those businesses built before 1990 are supposed to be making reasonable modifications over time or when they complete a renovation.
Colleen Miller, executive director of the Disability Law Center of Virginia, says unfortunately, not every business has implemented these changes.
"Some great progress has been made, but sometimes it's a little startling to see how little progress has been made in that time," said Miller." The technology has gotten old and hasn't been maintained. Power doors are a good example of that, where they're operated, usually on some kind of a mechanism, you know, a motor or battery of some sort. And if you don't maintain them, they won't work. So, some businesses that really made some good efforts 25 years ago and have not kept up with that and now are not in compliance with the law anymore."
Robertson said before her injury, she didn’t know what paralysis was or anyone who lived with it. But now, she sees her diagnosis as a way to teach young children about life with a disability, showing them that different is beautiful.
"I just find it very encouraging that I can be that motivation for some people," she explained. "I can kind of allow people to see that, you know, there's still purpose in the hard things and that they can overcome.”
Miller said, “I think that the way in which the world becomes more accessible is for people with disabilities to take ownership of their disability, to be proud of their disability and to recognize how much value we give to a world in making it much more accepting of differences, just by being ourselves."
Robertson has learned how to adaptive wakeboard, and she’s also taken on adaptive golfing.
She’s grateful for the support of her fiancé and family who she said make it possible for her to navigate the barriers that do still exist.
If you’d like to get in touch with the Disability Law Center, you can submit a form for service via the website dlcv.org. Advocates are also standing by to take phone calls Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That number is 1-800-552-3962.
