Steampunk leg wearer is told she “should be ashamed”

A lady in Nova Scotia received a note on her car saying she “should be ashamed” of parking in a disabled parking spot because she had been seen and filmed walking normally from her car. What the person who wrote the note didn’t know was that Natasha Hope-Simpson was in fact wearing a prosthetic leg after she’d lost hers in a hit and run incident. In an interview with CBC, Natasha explained how she normally parked in an easy access spot but it wasn’t always available. She has an Accessible Parking Permit hanging in her window, but that didn’t stop the anonymous neighbour from getting out their pitchfork and torch. I’ve copied the note here including the Canadian/American spellings, poor language skills and bad grammar:

I HAVE A VIDEO OF YOU WALKING AWAY FROM YOUR CAR ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS, YOU ARE NOT HANDICAPPED!! THE NEXT TIME YOU PARK HERE I WILL FORWARD THE VIDEO’S TO POLICE WITH YOUR LICENSE PLATE NUMBER.

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!!!!

Not wanting her disability stop her leading a splendid life, Natasha worked hard at first learning to wear and walk on the prosthesis, then to perfect her walk so that people wouldn’t know she was wearing it. Natasha is very calm about it all and is actually flattered by the note. She told CBC: “I’m kind of flattered about that, because I’ve been working pretty hard on my walk to make it look natural.” It’s easy to misjudge people because able bodied people tend to have a stereotypical view of disabilities that they have to be obviously noticeable. There are lots of disabilities that aren’t entirely clear and we really need to keep that in mind. Natasha wears a steampunk style covering over her leg which is made by Canadian based Alleles Design Studio. Her model is the Imperialist and retails from $425. They also do a lovely looking Octopus option.