Peeling back
the labels

By john hartevelt
12 December 2016

Call him a diver, a cyclist, a businessman, a swimmer, a traveller, a gym-bunny, a hiker, a cook. Just don’t call him disabled.

“I hate the word ‘disabled’. It says I’m inferior to someone who is able-bodied,” Brendon Stratton says.

Over twenty years ago, Stratton woke up to find himself trapped under a flipped van. He could not feel his legs. His sternum was cracked and he had a host of other injuries, but it was the numbness below his waist that told him things were going to change.

Before the crash, Stratton had been training to race at the BMX world championships. The accident put a stop to that, but it’s had a minimal impact on his life. He cycles, he dives, he hits the gym, he runs two successful businesses.

“People perceive that life changes, but it doesn’t actually change, you know?” Stratton says.

“If you accept it’s going to change, yep, there are certain things that you have to accept. But when I look back in terms of what I want to do versus what I can do or shouldn’t do, there’s nothing.”

Months after the accident, Stratton was at home, wheelchair-bound. He asked his mother for a glass of water. “Your arms aren’t broken, get it yourself,” she told him.

Stratton, 43, credits his parents with helping him develop the can-do mindset that’s stopped the accident from holding him back. They never told him he couldn’t do something.

Unfortunately, not everyone is like that.

“The problem with disability is that people perceive that they know what’s best for you,” Stratton says.

“They see your disability, or your non-normalness, and then they try to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing. That really infuriates me.”

Stratton has heard it all. What happens if you crash? You can’t go overseas by yourself, what if something goes wrong? You can’t climb stairs.

Although the concern often comes from a good place, it’s a symptom of the idea that people with disabilities can’t make their own choices. That’s totally untrue.

What attracts a guy like Stratton to activities like diving and cycling? His life would be a lot easier if his main interest was something like chess.

Stratton, who lives on Auckland's North Shore, says it’s most of the usual stuff - the adrenaline, the freedom, being out in nature.

“And also too you’re just like everybody else, and you’re perceived as being like everybody else,” he says.

“And it’s the same as when I do the diving, diving for me, it opens your mind up that the world is bigger than what it is. There’s a whole other world under there, and you realise how small you are compared to everything else that’s going on in the world.”

Stratton’s accident seems to fit the definition of “defining” pretty neatly, but he is adamant it hasn’t impacted him as much as people might think. The same year of Stratton’s crash, his best friend was knocked off his bike and killed. Stratton can’t remember the exact date he lost the use of his legs, but he does remember when his mate died.

“You appreciate that life can change in a heartbeat,” he says.

“The last thing I want to be doing is lying on a hospital bed - which is not a fun place to be - and wondering, geez, I wish I’d done that. I want to be thinking, geez, I’ve got some great memories. I can’t wait to get out there and make some more.”

Perhaps that’s why he keeps challenging himself, trying new things. But on some other level, it’s about defying the people who try to tell him who to be.

“I hate it when people limit themselves based on what other people think of them,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t got, or what disability you have or haven’t got, it’s about what your mindset allows you to do.”

It’s Stratton’s legs, not his brain, that don’t work. When he takes on a new activity, be it go-karting or paddleboarding, he weighs up the risks himself.

“Everything you do has an element of risk. Getting up and stepping out your door in the morning has an element of risk. We all chose to accept a certain amount or risk in our lives, or we wouldn’t do anything,” he says.

“Some people perceive when you have a disability that you’re not intellectually capable of making your own decisions. If someone’s with you even more so.”

He finds that if he’s with a friend or family member, strangers will address them instead of talking to him.

Stratton’s athletic lifestyle keeps him very fit, and that pushes back against another stereotype he comes across; that people with disabilities are weak. When he’s training for the bike races he competes in overseas, he’ll train over twenty hours a week, covering more than 600km.

He has to be careful not to wear out his shoulders; he’s basically asking them to be his hips, which isn’t what they are designed for.

As well as all his leisure pursuits, Stratton runs two businesses. One is an IT recruitment firm, while the other makes customised wheelchairs. Stratton was inspired to start making custom wheelchairs to suit clients around 10 years ago, when he got fed up with heavy, ill-fitting chairs that were not fit for purpose.

“A lot of it was about providing choice for people,” he says.

“The chairs we do, they’re made to measure, so everything’s made to measure. When I first got my chair mine was an old hospital chair, just a pig.

“I want something that fits me. You wouldn’t buy a pair of shoes that were a size too small … so why should I have a chair that doesn’t fit what I’m after?”

A friend recently asked Stratton what she should call him. Handicapped? Disabled?
“I’d rather you call me Brendon,” he said.

Designer: Caleb Carnie
Editor: John Hartevelt