NOTES FR O M T HE F IE LD
THE BIG PICTURE: MAKING A DIFFERENCE Written by: ROSA WALSTON LATIMER
“My father taught me to work with my hands,” Darrell Mullen RRTS®, said. “My mother taught me to work with my heart. Both are equally important in my work. They were just parenting, but they were actually preparing me for my life’s work.” When Mullen was in his late 20s, his father suffered a stroke that left his left side paralyzed. “I grew up on Prince Edward Island, a small island on the east coast of Canada. My father was a mechanic, and my mother worked at a grocery store. After high school, I was working in Alberta when my father, who was 63 years old, had a massive stroke. I came back home and was with him through his rehab. At that time the therapists were trying to get him to use a manual wheelchair.” Mullen’s father was unwilling to accept a manual chair and told his son he didn’t want to live if he couldn’t have a power wheelchair. “We were told that he wouldn’t be safe in a power chair,” Mullen said. “I wasn’t in this industry at the time, but the medical equipment supplier that we were working with loaned us a power chair for Dad to use. Every day for about five weeks, we practiced going through doorways and down the hall. He learned to stop and scan, and safely maneuver. My father passed the test to qualify to use a power chair, and our rural community held fundraisers to help pay for it.”
“JUST AS I HAD DONE WITH MY DAD IN HIS NEW REALITY, I WANTED TO WORK IN THAT FIELD, BUT I HAD NO IDEA HOW TO DO IT.” 16
DIRECTIONS 2021.2
After helping his dad through rehab, Mullen returned to Alberta, but he realized he wanted to be closer to home, so he and his wife, Veronique, decided to move. “I also realized I wanted to
work, in some way, with wheelchairs,” Mullen said. “Just as I had done with my dad in his new reality, I wanted to work in that field, but I had no idea how to do it.” In 2006, the Mullens moved to Moncton, New Brunswick, which is about two hours from his parents. “Veronique got a teaching job and I was pounding the pavement, trying to get a job, in the rehab industry, but no Darrell Mullen with Occupational Therapists one would talk to me,” Heather Swan, and Tobi Bennett Mullen said. “During a ‘meet the teacher’ event at school, a parent asked Veronique what kind of work her husband did and she explained that I was trying to get a job in the rehab field. The parent, who was an occupational therapist, told her about a medical equipment company that was opening in Moncton,” Mullen said. “As soon as my wife came home with this (l to r) Shawn Leger, Mat Kinnie, and Darrell Mullen news, I Googled the company and was able to get an interview. I explained I wanted to be a technician; that I had learned how to make repairs from being in my father’s shop and working on a farm. I also made some switch panels and other things for a friend in Alberta, who uses a wheelchair and owns a company
