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Out and about with Margret Amelang
Out and about with Margret Amelang
Maggie’s dream
A car accident changed Margret Amelang’s life completely six years ago. Ironically, an old rally team is now bringing back freedoms that were thought to be lost.
Annette Johann
10/02/1996
When I discover the crooked Africa Twin team with a faded start number from the ’93 Pharaoh Rally in the good Heidelberg one-family housing estate, I know that I am right. It doesn’t fit here, between the Astras and Corsas under the pergolas. Neither does the young woman with the cut off jeans in that wheelchair. At least not in my idea of a paraplegic. Margret Amelang begins to dispel the prejudices even before the greeting. Five years ago, the then 25-year-old was sitting next to her when her boyfriend slammed his car against a tree on the road at 120 km / h. Margret could only be rescued from the wreck with the rescue scissors. Two cervical vertebrae and the nerves for the lower extremities were irredeemably lost, and the control of the arms was severely damaged. Never leave, probably hardly even write, was the message in the hospital. From that day on, nothing was the same in the life of the budding lawyer, athlete and XT 600 Tenere pilot. Nothing. After the terrible first six months of shock – “I must have been in a terrible mood” – the first thing she did was to put her overprotective friend, tortured by a guilty conscience, out of the door and then began to reorganize her life. “It starts in the head,” she explains, skilfully pulling herself up from the wheelchair into the passenger seat of the team, “you mustn’t think about what CANNOT work now, but what STILL!” A young man with a hedgehog hairstyle comes along Helmets and jackets out the front door, Margret helps with the final steps and maneuvers the team onto the street. Sebastian, 32, KTM rider, mechanic, orthopedic mechanic and partner in one person is one of the new orders in Maggie’s life. For him, who sometimes works with severely disabled people, it is “a comparatively easy case. She can do almost everything herself «. He still hangs the wheelchair in the self-made frame at the front of the boat, and off we go via Leimen and Nubloch to the south out of the city. If the team already looks rather crooked when standing, it gives the impression when driving as if it were about to fall over towards the middle of the street. The long cross spring travel clearly reveals the asymmetry that is typical for tensioning. Perhaps it had one or the other rollover in its past rally life. Regardless, Margret sits grinning in a converted old sports car bucket seat on the open platform in the wind, in front of her the folded wheelchair, behind her in a box all the utensils that make life in an unprotected Cross sidecar bearable: hot water bottles, heated vests, Raincoat. Because Margret definitely has sensations in the paralyzed parts of the body – also for wetness, cold and bumpy slopes. But this airy thing should become the key to the world for them. In the first corners it is partly clear why. Because Margret “does gymnastics”. With surprising mobility and with the help of the open tubular chassis, she routinely helps to keep the windy vehicle on the track by shifting the upper body. As if in pair skating, she and Sebastian drive the tricycle through the Neckar Valley and up into the Odenwald. Margret leans far over the sidecar wheel in right turns and over the pillion seat in left turns. It is almost as beautiful as driving it yourself. In 1993 the two discovered the team at a trade fair as an exhibit for the hapless rally driver Peter Balle. While they were still in the hall, they talked about it from him. That or none. On the one hand, all the necessary alterations for the disabled could be installed relatively easily on the “open” construction, and on the other hand, it “already gives the necessary feeling of adventure”, as Magret admits with an embarrassed smile during a photo break. They drove it to Greece in the first season. Not a coffee trip, it seems. »Just to cope with the narrow stairs on the ferry or the bumpy streets in the towns with the wheelchair was a torture tour. For both of them, ”she says with a sympathetic gesture to Sebastian. Nevertheless, the next year it even went to Mexico, the team of course by air transport with them. She was gripped by the travel bug. With eloquent gestures, she raves about the slopes on Baja California, where they got stuck in the sand and were only released again with the help of a few Mexicans who happened to be passing by. Her face bursts with life when she talks about it, the Mexican silver jewelry on her neck and hands flashes brightly in the sun. “Often,” she recalls, “we were really scared that we couldn’t do it. Then we drank a schnapps in the morning just to venture out on the way. «But it was brilliant, incredibly intense. She laughs ashamed, as if terrified at her own audacity. Sebastian grins relaxed. “It’s great to experience these things together. It connects enormously. «The photographer is okay, we smoke one last cigarette and prepare to leave. At the beginning it was said that Margret would be able to twilight little more than in a wheelchair, so little was left of residual mobility. In the meantime she has trained 70 percent of her arm strength, plays in a wheelchair rugby team, rides a special bike with arm cranks and does most of the household chores at home. “I just didn’t want to come to terms with it, I wanted to get the maximum out of the remaining mobility.” Only the courtroom is currently no longer in professional conversation, “I literally lack the standing in a wheelchair”. Instead, she is now advising other disabled people on legal issues at a counseling center. A scooter approaches, creaking and laughing loudly. Two carefree teenagers with bathing bags slung around their necks rush to us. Isn’t she sometimes afraid of missing out on something? No, not really, is the astonishing answer. “I’ve lived intensely, savored everything, that’s why I’m not missing anything.” Somehow you believe her. Her parents used to drag her to the end of the world, in a hideous, converted camper. Back then it would have been annoying – today she is grateful for every moment. When it wasn’t going on a big tour, the motorcycle enthusiast father took her to Hockenheim, where little Maggie quickly understood what racing fever is. She remembers Wayne Rainey and his 1993 accident, paraplegia, like hers. That was a shock. She had seen the fateful Misano race on television. “My goodness, of all people, the one I admired more than anyone else. I wrote to him, but of course he didn’t answer. ”A small smile crosses her face before she puts on her helmet and Sebastian pushes the team back into the street. We drive a bit through the Odenwald and then in long trains back down into the warmth of the Rhine plain. Shortly before Schriesheim we branch off again to the Ladenburg. A wonderful castle ruin, where a small restaurant high on the rocks offers a wonderful view of the Rhine plain and the opportunity for a last cup of coffee. We park in front of the large stone gate, and Sebastian carefully helps the now clearly exhausted friend with a grip under the armpits into the wheelchair. Her right leg is trembling violently in an uncontrolled reflex. »The motorcyclists just can’t help it«, we hear suddenly sharp behind us. An elderly gentleman looking at the scene. When nobody cares about him, he adds again: “Isn’t that from a motorcycle accident?” Margret’s leg is still wriggling, she tries with great effort to control stress and reflexes. “Or?” The old man is stubborn. I’ve got a lot on the tip of my tongue now, but I’ll keep my mouth shut just to be on the safe side. That’s Margret’s thing. No, the addressed finally throws at him with strained serenity, be it not. Before the inevitable next question can come, we escape behind the castle walls. “They’re the worst punishment,” she says with suddenly tired resignation. The gawkers, the precocious and the compassionate, who pretend to have something not only on your legs, but also on your head. “Sometimes, when they really annoy me by saying that this carriage driving is probably pretty dangerous, I say that it couldn’t get much worse. Then it’s mostly quiet. ”She laughs in amusement when she says that.
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