“Anyone (who witnessed the accident) would have acted like me. I’m not particularly righteous, but I’m embarrassed (to be known).”
While it was belatedly known that a citizen helped arrest a drunken hit-and-run driver who ran away in an electric wheelchair on the road, Ryu Eun-hwan (32, Lotte Holdings), the protagonist of the story, said in a phone call with this magazine on the 7th.
On the morning of January 31, Ryu Eun-hwan was driving a vehicle from his hometown of Jeonju in North Jeolla Province to Iksan, where the training ground was located. However, as he approached the training ground, he noticed that the car in front of him changed lanes, hit a motorized wheelchair occupant driving on the right edge of the road, and ran away.
Ryu Eun-hwan said, “It was a big collision that made a ‘thud’ sound. Of course, I thought (the car in front) would stop, but I ran away, so I thought I had to catch it, so I chased after it.” The police conducted a sobriety test and informed him that he had even been drunk.”
According to the current Road Traffic Act, Article 2, Item 10, manual wheelchairs and electric wheelchairs are classified as walking assistance chairs and are regarded as pedestrians, so they must be driven on the sidewalk. However, due to insufficient maintenance on the sidewalk, illegal parking, indiscriminately neglected stall facilities, and obstacles such as shared bicycles and kickboards, users complain of inconvenience and are driving at the edge of the road.
Ryu Eun-hwan, who is also a user of a manual wheelchair, said, “Riding an electric wheelchair means that you are close to severe (disability). He said, “I wonder if he had to drive on the road because it was difficult to get around on the sidewalk.”
Ryu Eun-hwan was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident in 2014 while he was in college.
Before the accident, he enjoyed all kinds of sports that could be done with a ball, but after the accident, his activity decreased and he felt stuffy. Ryu Eun-hwan said, “He liked sports, but he had nothing to sweat because he was living in a wheelchair.” As a result of participating in various sports at the Jeonbuk Disabled Sports Association, he became interested in fencing, which he had only done as a hobby, and started to become a wheelchair fencing player in earnest about six years ago. Regarding the charm of fencing, Ryu Eun-hwan said, “It’s cool as if I became a swordsman. He was drawn to the details, which he had to practice hundreds of thousands of times to master a single stabbing motion,” he said.
Under Coach Do-seon Choi (current coach), who has been with him since 2021, he blossomed his talent and put on the Taegeuk mark. walked on Ryu Eun-hwan said, “I think I learned delicate skills under coach Choi and started to follow suit in international competitions.”
He is currently concentrating on rehabilitation in Jeonbuk after coming out of the Gyeonggi Disabled Sports Association’s Icheon Training Center due to an elbow tendon injury, but Ryu predicted that he would be able to recover within the first half of the year. He laughed, saying, “Thanks to the Korean Disabled Fencing Association, which taught me how to rehabilitate and provided equipment, my rehabilitation is progressing well.” 바카라
Ryu Eun-hwan aims to participate in the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou in October this year and the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. He said, “To participate in the Asian Games and Paralympic Games, you must constantly manage the world rankings. He is still in the rankings based on the participation criteria, but it is highly likely that the ranking will go down outside the criteria due to difficulties in participating in competitions for the time being. I will come back quickly and manage the rankings in the World Cup and other events.”
Until the end of the call, he waved his hand, saying he did the obvious thing.