Playing Basketball For A Wheelchair-Bound Cambodian Landmine Victim Is A Breeze

By Tengku Faezah Tengku Yusof KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 2 (Bernama) -- Cambodian Lors Nimul lost her right leg in a landmine incident, but this does not stop the wheelchair-bound 33-year-old from pursuing her favourite game, basketball. Anyone who sees her in action, bouncing a basketball, a game which requires a lot of leg movements, will surely be mesmerised. Lors, from Kokes Sar village, Thmar Kor, Battambang, Cambodia, was here recently for a Wheelchair Basketball Exhibition Match jointly organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and ASEAN-Malaysia National Secretariat. The game was held in conjunction with the ASEAN Disability Forum 2015 (ADF 2015), which involved a match consisting of mixed teams of Cambodian and Malaysian players. Lors, who lost her right leg in the incident in 2002, while on her way to work, told Bernama that the incident did not deter her determination to live a normal life, instead it had made her stronger. Recalling the incident, Lors, who worked in a potato farm, said she became unconscious after accidentally stepping on the landmine. "When I woke up in the hospital, I noticed one of my legs had gone," said the plucky lady who started taking part in several basketball tournaments in Cambodia since 2012. "The tragedy has not changed my life. Even though in the beginning I felt sad and refused to meet society, but I realise that I need to stand up, and show the world that I can still be useful to my community,” she said. Another wheelchair-bound Cambodian Doung Chanraksa, 33, said that since she joined the wheelchair basketball team in 2013, she has become a better person. Doung suffered a broken spine after falling down from a tree while trying to pluck tamarinds, which also resulted in her suffering a miscarriage, losing her two-month fetus. After the incident, which saw her spending a lot of money for her medical treatment, she also "lost" her husband, they got divorced five months after the incident. “I felt devastated and had totally given up on life but all of my friends were there when I needed them the most, and they taught me how to play basketball,” she said, adding that although initially she was not familiar with the game, it did not hamper her desire to move forward in life. “I had difficulties at first. I could’t control the ball with only one hand at one time, as I was not used to it. It hit my nose almost every time I played, but still I enjoyed playing the game with friends,” she said. Lors and Doung were among eight Cambodian female players who took part in the wheelchair basketball match which also saw 15 Malaysian players participating in the first ever wheelchair basketball match involving mixed teams of men and women in the region. The eight players from Cambodia are part of the wheelchair basketball programme supported by the ICRC’s Physical Rehabilitation Programme in Cambodia, as part of its commitment to promote social reintegration of people with disabilities through sports activities, improving patients' physical and mental health. The programme is also to alleviate negative perception that women with disability are unable to contribute to family and society. -- BERNAMA