A small act of random kindness had a huge impact on the lives of a Wishaw family just days before Christmas.
Rie Cushley, 55, was at her wits end after losing a vital piece of her son’s wheelchair, rendering it useless, before a worker at an ironmoger’s shop came to the rescue - leaving her in tears.
Darran, 32, has the rare life-limiting condition Pachygyria and relies on his chair to get around.
Rie explained: “When Darran was born the hospital wouldn’t believe there was something wrong with him. They wouldn’t listen to me but I knew straight away, he was royal blue and his head was twice the size of his body. He was a year-and-a-half before he was diagnosed.
“He is a grown man but has the brain of an eight-month-old baby. He is profoundly mentally and physically disabled.”
Together, Darran's family ensure he has a really active and exciting life. He lives with his mum in Coltness but stays every second weekend with his dad Allan in Craigneuk , and also receives support from his sister Becky.
“Darran is out every single day,” says Rie. "He can’t walk but was the first man to win gold in ice skating in the harness at the Special Olympics. His chair is his legs.
"He’s an adrenaline junkie and I’ve had him go-karting and we go running together regularly. We’re organising for him to go power boating. .”
Darran, Rie, and her three-year-old granddaughter were out together days before Christmas when they managed to lose the small but essential part of the chair.
“I was really stressed at the time,” Rie admits. “It was raining and I was trying to get Darran in the car and get my granddaughter in her car seat, the nut must have come off without me even noticing.
"The handles of the chair have a metal bar which goes across to stop the whole thing collapsing and the head rest attaches to the bar. This bar is held on by two wing nuts. The next day he sat in it and it just folded. ”
In a desperate bid to find the missing part, the concerned mum retraced her steps.
She added: “It was just before Christmas and I’d never have been able to get the part ordered.
“I didn’t know what to do and spent hours driving as far away as Dumbarton, we’d been there and in Hamilton, and up at Dobbies for Santa - I went back there and to Lanark. I must have travelled about 80 miles up and down.
“Every car park I’d been to I was in looking for it, and it’s about the size of a 50p. People must have thought, ‘What is that woman doing on her hands in knees?’. I was using the torch from my phone.”
The frantic search was to no avail and as a desperate last resort Rie turned to Boyle The Ironmonger in Wishaw’s Ashtree Industrial Estate to see if they could help.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Rie admitted. "It’s not a normal wheelchair that you could go anywhere and get the part.
“I went in with the other wing nut and asked if they had anything resembling it, and the nicest man helped me. He came back with something and said, ‘That will fix it!’.
“He wouldn’t let me pay for it and I was so choked up I had to walk out the shop. I went out to the car and burst into tears. I can’t even remember if I said thanks to him and I don't know his name, I was mortified afterwards.
“That one wee act of kindness allowed Darran to get out and about, without it we would have been snookered.
“He has no idea just how much he helped us, and I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t got that.
“A genuine act of kindness can change your life. If I live to 100 I will never forget the impact that man had on our lives.”
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