2023-10-26 04:04:11
Par Augustin Delaporte
Published on 26 Oct 23 at 6:04 See my news Follow Paris News
The wonderful thing regarding an image is that depending on the amount of information we have, we can read it in an infinite number of different ways. On this one, we can, for example, guess the gentle autumn followingnoon that was this Tuesday, October 24, 2023. We can also strongly assume that the man in the middle is in a wheelchair.
“My body is not dead”
By taking a look at the legend, then with a quick search on the Internet, we will also discover that this one is a survivor of the November 13 attacks. “It only took one bullet to sever my spinal cord and cut off my legs. Only one. My body is not dead, no, it is immobile,” he said in his work “A Glow in the Dark,” co-written with Myriam, his wifeand published in 2021.
Almost eight years ago now, Pierre Cabon was at the Bataclan for the band’s concert Eagles of Death Metal. For long minutes, he plunged into total darkness. Horror then seized the place. Then, Pierre woke up. Without any memory of “the smells, the noises,” he swears. One day surely, his memory will no longer be able to hide from him what his body has experienced.
But what this image says above all is that Pierre is surrounded. To her left, Myriam exudes quite incredible strength and has the effect of an unsinkable lightning rod. Her words are chosen with precision, she seems to leave nothing to chance. To her right, Nicolas envelopes her in his tenderness. A huge smile in the middle of the face which betrays a keen sensitivity.
Between them, Pierre displays a calmness and a kind of totally disconcerting innocence. On the night of November 2015, he might have lost himself in the darkness and never returned. But life has, for the moment, decided otherwise.
Wheelchair Adventure
In the months following the attacks, time became distorted. Pierre remained in the rehabilitation center of the Invalides hospital (7th) until July 2016. A period which also served him to find a adapted accommodation. “In the summer of 2016, I hardly went out,” he says.
With Myriam, however, they took a breath of fresh air the following year, flying to a trip to Canada in 2017. A path to their common future is taking shape before their eyes. “We found that it was a destination that was not necessarily always very suitable for a person with reduced mobility (PRM),” recalls Pierre.
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The turning point finally took place in 2018, during their honeymoon in the United States. They had met only a handful of months before the night of the 13th, since 2018 they have been linked for eternity. And driven by a shared ambition: “to show that travel is possible in a wheelchair”.
This idea has a name: Wheeled World. The structure first takes the form of an association, before transforming into a company. Nicolas, Pierre’s long-time friend, will eventually join him.
Educate through demonstration
In the meantime, Pierre and Myriam take unpaid leave and start on a world tour… The couple travels to the most remote places and, in fact, the least suitable for PRMs. South America, Oceania, New Zealand in tandem,… before being slowed down 300 kilometers from the finish by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It’s going backwards to jump better. In the summer of 2022, they climb Kilimanjaro (5,895m). Nothing can resist their desire to enjoy life to the fullest.
Paragliding and kayak on turquoise waterall-terrain chair at the Piton de la Fournaise, arctic landscape: the contents of Wheeled World are a hymn to life and beauty.
Pioneers of the Half Marathon des Sables
Their last journey? Four days in the Moroccan Sahara (from October 16 to 19, 2023) and dozens of kilometers swallowed between the dunes. “We wanted a new big project and we decided to contact the organization of the Half Marathon des Sables,” rewinds Myriam. They then quickly wanted to make us pioneers in order to try to make the course accessible.”
Myriam, Pierre and Nicolas in the Moroccan Sahara in October 2023. (©Half Marathon des Sables)
And continues: “We regularly see joëlettes in running events, but here, the idea is to be active, to push with your hands. We served as guinea pigs in a way, to let the organizers know what might be improved and so that, ultimately, the athletes and paraathletes might start and finish on the same line.”
Not everything was smooth, necessarily. The first stage, for example, was almost impassable. The human adventure, however, has often been extraordinary. “When we arrived at the starting line, the 500 runners parted like the Red Sea… It’s an incredible adrenaline rush,” confides Nicolas.
“Some stopped along the way to help us climb the dunes, and volunteers were crying upon our arrival,” also remembers the one who completed the trio in Morocco. Pierre therefore became the first PMR to complete the Half Marathon des Sables. But the important thing was elsewhere, the Parisian team opened the way.
And if the shadow of the trauma still looms, and one day perhaps the sensations of horror will suddenly resurface, Pierre, Myriam and Nicolas had the sublime smile and the tired look of three friends who live intensely in the presenton this late autumn followingnoon.
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