Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, in partnership with Vermont Public.
Do you know how to do a wheelie in a wheelchair? Mo O’Neill does.
O’Neill is an adaptive athlete who rides wheelchair motocross, or WCMX. And when they’re not in college classes, snuggling with their cat and dog or making TikTok videos, you can find them dropping in at one of Burlington’s skateparks.
🎧 This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript below.
Mo O’Neill: Hey, my name’s Mo. I’m an adaptive athlete and I ride wheelchair motocross.
I think that being paralyzed was just a moment where I kind of realized how much dependency I was feeling, which didn’t align with my vision of myself. And I started immediately searching for a thrill.
And I started looking up pretty much any adaptive sport ever. And I went through monoskiing, murderball, before I landed on obsessively watching videos of wheelchairs at the skatepark.
Wren Dumais (on tape): Do you remember your first drop in?
Mo O’Neill: I was with my girlfriend, Caroline, and I showed up at the skatepark. I was so nervous. I wasn’t in a specialized chair yet, I didn’t have a helmet, I didn’t even have a seatbelt on.
Once I got to the top of the tiniest drop-in at the park, I felt everyone’s eyes on me. As well as the height, the sheer height of it all — it was terrifying, I was shaking. But also, that was the first time I really felt that much adrenaline.
And I didn’t want everyone to see me fail. So that was mainly the reason that I didn’t want to do it. And so once I realized that, I kind of realized how stupid it was.
And Caroline told me, she was like, ‘Oh, if you’re scared, just go in backwards.’ And that laughed me out of all of the fear because, I don’t know if anyone knows anything about wheelchairs, but the center of gravity would send me flying.
And so I just did it. And I landed it. And my legs flew off the footplate, and everyone stared, but it was smooth. And it was the best feeling I have ever had. It felt like home. And I’ve just never stopped wanting to drop in since that moment.
One time, at the skatepark, I was kind of loitering at the top of the bowl. And people were kinda at the other side of the skatepark, and apparently they were watching me, ’cause after I landed this girl, like, sprinted up to me and she was like, lit up, and she was like, ‘I don’t know if this is offensive, but I saw you at the top and I had no idea, like, I did not expect you to do that, but it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’
And it was just so genuine. And I feel like no skater — like when I fall, even, like, the people at the park don’t treat me like somebody in a wheelchair who’s fallen. They treat me like a skater who’s fallen. So they’re just like, ‘You good, bro?’ Whereas if I fall on the street, the world stops.
This is kind of the first time that, like, my recklessness and stubbornness has really, really served me. Like, WCMX is the reason that I’m able to adapt to life as a paraplegic — a lot more than pretty much any medical treatment that I’ve ever received.