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See beyond the disability

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Spinal injuries

Scott lives in Ayr with his wife. He teaches school students about spinal injuries, is involved in many volunteer initiatives and enjoys boating and fishing.

Scott’s tips for including someone with a spinal injury in everyday life

“Just because a person uses a wheelchair doesn’t mean that the only difficulty they face is that they cannot walk. I have no feeling or movement from below my upper chest. Remember that everyone, including people without disabilities, have many different needs. We are not asking for anything special or different to anybody else. We just want to partake in and have the same opportunities to live in our community. Don’t treat a person with a spinal injury any differently. Many people don’t realise it, but they sometimes speak and act in a patronising way to a person with a disability.”

Managing spinal injuries — how you can help

• Anything over three millimetres is essentially a step and will pose difficulties to wheelchair users.
• To a wheelchair user, their wheelchair is part of their personal space and should be treated as such. Do not rest your foot on their wheelchair, or touch their wheelchair unless you have been asked to.
• Do not move a person’s wheelchair unless you have been asked to, or slap a person in a wheelchair on the back or thigh as a goodwill gesture as this can cause the person to lose their balance, or trigger muscle spasms.
• When talking to a person in a wheelchair do not worry about using language like “I must be running along.” These expressions are part of everyday language.

"Lots of knowledge and advice is available, people just need to be willing to listen."

Key facts about spinal injuries

• Almost 100 people in Queensland experience spinal cord injuries every year. That’s one injury every four days. Approximately half of these injuries result in paraplegia and half in quadriplegia.
• Men are four times more likely than women to experience a spinal cord injury.
• Almost 80 per cent of spinal cord injuries occur through road accidents, water-related activities, falls and crushes, and sporting injuries. They can also be caused by nontraumatic events including transverse myelitis (spinal cord inflammation), tumours, and surgical complications.