Watch this New York Times video about Eve Hampton and Robert Pratt, who met while coaching wheelchair basketball at a summer camp.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.
1 Both Eve and Robert are engineers.
2 Robert liked Eve for her extrovert personality.
3 Eve got disabled at 13.
4 Robert had his leg amputated in Iraq.
5 They both like being outdoors.
6 When they were in Glacier National Park, Robert grabbed a little mouse in his arms.
7 Eve doesn't mind people helping her.
8 Robert didn't really suffer when he got disabled.
9 Eve has gained confidence thanks to Robert.
I tend to plan things and tend to have the vision where I want to go do something and he… I don’t want to say you make my dreams come true but you do, everything I tell you I want to do you find a…
We find a way to do it.
We’re software engineers, that’s kind of what we do, we try to solve problems. We were camp counselors at San Diego, that’s a sports foundation camp.
He was coaching little kids in wheel chairs and anybody who is coaching little kids in wheel chairs is really cute.
You have this great bubbly personality I just love. There was something about you, I couldn’t, couldn’t forget.
When you have a trauma in your life, life for me becoming a paraplegic at 13, well I think I’m well adjusted now, that13-year-old is still part of who I am. Bob had a physical trauma too.
2006 while I was serving in Iraq as part of 1st Batallion Marines I was injured and got part of my right leg blown off. While recovering I was participating in some of the sports programmes. You know, I kind of learnt from doing that to see people beyond their wheel chairs, to see the person itself.
We’ve been really outdoorsy I think since much before we met, since little kids [Yeah.] and I think we recognize that in each other [Yeah.]
The past fall it’s been 75 days and nights camping in national parks. Yosemite…
Glacier.
Glacier, Yellow Stone, we went to the Badlands, Rushmore…
Oh, a little creek. You don’t really have your health guaranteed forever, you can’t just wait until retirement to go and do things like that. We’re able enough to do that now, so we did. When we were in Glacier National Park, there was this point in the trail that we came to and there was stairs leading up to this bridge, so I was like, okay, we’ll turn around, you know, sometime you can’t go any further in the trail and Bob says let me just see what’s ahead and he walks across the bridge and there was a moose standing there, so of course he comes back and he grabs me and takes me over the bridge…
Oh, they have wheel-chair height windows, or kid-height.
Either…or.
I don’t accept help from just anyone. In fact, like I actively resist people helping me most of the time but I think when you find a partner, then it’s okay to have them help you because that’s kind of what you do.
It’s locked.
Are you sure?
Yes, there’s a dead bolt.
Oh, sad.
You get frustrated when you’re disabled, you really do, you can’t run anymore, you can’t jump, I felt like self-conscious sometimes over shorts because everyone was staring at my right leg, and she helped me get over that.
I think he doesn’t always see me as an adult woman paraplegic, just sees me as this woman he loves [Yeah.], and so I see myself more as that, too. I think I’ve always been self-confident but to have someone who unconditionally loves you and to know that no matter what your physicality is, that they will love you. You don’t find that every day, really.
It’s true. Oh, Eve, I love you.
Are you trying to make this thing shake?
Key:
1T 2T 3T 4F 5T 6F 7F 8F 9T
