It’s Monday morning and some even more terrible things than usual are happening in the world, but it’s always still possible to be inspired by people working hard to make life better for others.

Here on Twitter and here on Instagram, Jennie Berry (Wheelie Good Life) is writing about her daily experiences as a wheelchair user. She’s a strong advocate for accessible spaces. And she’s local!

In this post, she writes about the seat collapsing in an accessible shower in a hotel, due to inadequate screws.

The aftermath of showering in my hotel sat on the shower chair when suddenly it failed at @mamashelterlondon @accor . The whole chair came off the wall, meaning I fell; leaving me wet and naked on the floor. I look up, assuming that because I’m in a disabled room with adaptations, there will be a red cord. The cord was tied up to the ceiling. Another common occurrence that disabled people face daily.

Fortunately, Jennie was able to reach the secondary cord to call for help. I can imagine how horrific the indignity of her rescue must have been and my heart goes out to her. I’m certainly difficult enough to haul about the place even when I’m clothed and not slippery. The people who have tried possessed the best will in the world but not an understanding of my disability, so it didn’t go well. Trying too hard and acting without coordination or a clear plan is not likely to help. Add nudity, soap, urgency and mortification and nobody involved is likely to come away with a sense of a job well done. I hope Jennie wasn’t too traumatised.

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been vaguely aware in some part of my mind that I’ve seen red cords tied up as Jenny describes. I paid them no attention! I haven’t needed to use one, yet! I’ll untie any I see in the future.

Presumably, the cleaners tie up the cords because they’re annoying (the cords I mean, not the cleaners, I don’t know whether the cleaners are annoying). I don’t blame them (the cleaners), I blame the establishments for not having proper training and inspection procedures. And in this case, for using crappy screws. Whoever did that work wasn’t thinking about the consequences of doing a shoddy job, which staggers me.

So if you see red cords tied up, untie them! They are not supposed to be tied! And check out Jennie’s Twitter and Instagram feeds, there’s lots of good stuff. I’m sure I’ll be linking to them here, from time to time.

I’m constantly annoyed by how poorly designed a lot of accessible spaces and products are. I’m fortunate enough to have good upper body strength so poor design is mostly a minor annoyance to me. To others, it can be a major obstacle. I need to do more to bring bad design to everyone’s attention and to wake up some of the designers. Jennie has inspired me! You can tell I’m inspired, I don’t often use so many exclamation marks!