Defensive Detour: Coping With Limited Mobility

Life throws us the occasional curveball. Circumstances beyond our control can compel us to change the way we do things, and these changes can manifest themselves in any aspect of our day-to-day activities, including our self-defense strategies.My family and I recently encountered one of these curveballs. Although it was a relatively minor and temporary situation, it required a significant adjustment to some of our personal protection plans, training and equipment. Because of this, I wanted to share the experience with everyone here on the Personal Defense Network.It started simply enough, when my wife Julie took a single step to the left while training in a defensive knife class. That step aggravated an existing but unrecognized stress fracture, resulting in a Jones’ fracture of the fifth left metatarsal. Or to put it in my level of medical knowledge, she broke her foot.While not an uncommon event, it does require a corrective surgical procedure and, more important to our topic, weeks without normal use of the foot or leg. This led to some highly modified behaviors. In a nutshell, it raised the question of how can we defend ourselves while hobbling around in a fiberglass cast? It was more work than either of us had anticipated.The infamous scooter, with basket and holstered pistol.

The infamous scooter, with basket and holstered pistol.

Mobility Inside the Home

The first problem we had to consider was inside our house. Julie was home while I was at work. During this time, she was almost totally reliant on a small four-wheeled cart for mobility. Since the cart had to go wherever she went, the best solution presented itself without much difficulty. The cart (henceforth known as “the scooter”) was rented from a medical supply store and proved to be an absolute godsend for getting around the house.

However, it had a couple of drawbacks, most importantly that it lacked any cargo capacity. This made even simple tasks more complicated. Noticing this defect, a neighbor (with a sense of humor) attached a small pink bicycle basket to the handlebars. Now Julie could move about with a small quantity of essentials in the basket. An inexpensive generic inside-the-waistband holster, rescued from my stash of orphaned gun stuff, easily attached to the basket and provided ready access to Julie’s XD9 pistol. The basket also kept her cell phone handy, along with more mundane necessities.

Julie demonstrates backward stair-climbing technique. Note motivational artwork on the cast!

This aforementioned crawling up the stairs took a couple of different forms, but Julie eventually decided that the preferred method was to sit on a step, facing away, and use her arms and right leg to lift herself up to the next step. Although it resulted in her going up the steps backward, this was a good position to access the phone or pistol, and was a bit of an upper body workout as well. It also came in handy when facing the next, and much more difficult, situation: self-defense outside the home.

Springfield Armory XD9 in holster compartment of Uncle Mike's concealed-carry briefcase.

Gun Gear to the Rescue

Once again, it was our (my) extensive collection of homeless gun stuff that provided a workable solution, this time in the form of an Uncle Mike’s concealed-carry briefcase. The shoulder strap is fully adjustable and, unlike many purse options, is long enough for Julie to swing the bag across her chest and rest it on her lap.

The case itself is well thought out and served as a combination portable office and cargo carrier. It has plenty of pockets, pencil slots, dividers and, most importantly, a rectangular gun pocket lined with Velcro that allows nearly limitless configurations for the included nylon holster. The gun pocket forms the back wall of the bag and has a narrow reach-through slot held closed by just a tiny Velcro tab. If a potential threat approached at the most inopportune moment, Julie could reach either hand straight down and get to the gun.

Julie demonstrates drawing her pistol from the briefcase.

In the end, it’s not the details of how Julie coped with carrying her gun during a temporary disability that are important. What’s important is that, with our combined years of teaching, training and thinking about self-defense, neither of us had ever considered how easily a simple change in physical circumstances could screw up our plans. And that is why I thought this article could be of some value – a reminder that our day-to-day comfort zones can be turned upside down without warning. But with a little thinking ahead, the disruption caused by injuries, accidents, unexpected surgeries, and other unwelcome events can be held to a manageable minimum. And after all, isn’t keeping challenging circumstances down to a manageable minimum a pretty good definition of “self-defense”?