Our Top Story: Darth Vader's a Helpless Cripple

By Mike Ervin

This comes from my always entertaining archive of supermarket tabloid disability headlines. I didn't save the date on this one but judging from the brittle yellowed state of this clip, it's probably circa late 1980s or so.

It says "he-man" actor Dave Prowse, who played Darth Vader, has been "reduced to a hobbling invalid-so crippled with arthritis he can barely walk!" Prowse, it says, is searching far and wide for a cure for the "heartbreaking ailment" that has "made him a pitiful cripple" Prowse says, "I don't have that much time."

As far as I can tell from the Internet, Prowse is still very much alive and well. And nowhere does it say anything about him having a disability.

Maybe Prowse went to see Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" and it cured him. According to the cover story of the April 12 edition of the Sun, there have been thousands of reports of miraculous healings in movie theaters across America. A woman for Minnesota who was "wheelchair bound" from multiple sclerosis felt a tingling in her legs throughout the film. Then, as the crucifixion began, she stood in front of her wheelchair. And now, baffled doctors report, her M.S. is gone.

Heavy use of alliteration is important when writing a good tabloid disability headline. For example: GUTSY GOLFER HAS NO LEGS! "Amazing golfer" Tom Quinn, who lost his legs in Vietnam, tees off from his wheelchair but sits on and scoots along the green to putt, using a sawed-off putter that's a foot long. Quinn is not only a gutsy golfer; he's also a "determined duffer."

Tabloid headline writers also love to use the word cripple. In my collection I have ARMLESS CRIPPLE IN FIGHT WITH BIGWIGS OVER PARKING PASS and CRIPPLE WHO MAKES $650 A MONTH MUST PAY $240 FOR CHILD SUPPORT and TOSSING DOWN BOOZE CAN CRIPPLE YOU. According to this last one from the Weekly World News, a 22-year old woman tore a blood vessel in her neck when she threw her head back drinking a shot, thus triggering a stroke. The article also says brushing your teeth can cause you to have a stroke, but it doesn't say how.

My favorite cripple headline is HERO POOCH PULLS CRIPPLED TEEN FROM SWIMMING POOL! The story says Teddy Berberian of Winter Haven, Florida somehow managed to fall into a swimming pool, wheelchair and all. But he was pulled out of the water by Kendrick, his trusty service dog. And then Kendrick went back to fetch the wheelchair.

The moral of this story is: if you're a wheelchair-user, never wear a seat belt. Forget about what all the doctors and therapists tell you. Wearing a seat belt can kill you.

Suppose someday you find yourself in the bottom of a pool with no one but your service dog to save you. No service dog is smart enough to figure out how to unfasten a seat belt first. If Teddy had followed doctor's orders and worn his seat belt, he would have drowned.

If the doctors and therapists tell you that could never happen, tell them to read the tabloids.