Westlands Member of Parliament Tim Wanyonyi was born a normal child and he could walk properly just like any other person.
His story however changed one day in the year 1998 and that saw him get confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Speaking to Jeff Koinange Live, Wanyonyi shared about the incident that left him paralyzed for over two decades now.
“My ending up in this chair was actually about crime. I was shot by carjackers one evening when I had just left work. I was going home and some fellows accosted me in Ngara and they shot me and that is it, very quickly my life transformed from just a young vibrant lawyer to a wheelchair,” the law maker recalled.
Wanyonyi was working at his brother’s(Senator Moses Wetang’ula) law firm, Wetang’ula and Company advocates and was just from university when the unfortunate incident occurred. The lawyer was shot at the back and that damaged his spinal cord.
The transformation was so difficult for him that he got into a depression since his mind could not heal. He however went abroad for rehabilitation.
“It is very difficult to transform from one condition of life to another one and that can drive you into depression. It can lead you into self denial and many other things. But when you go through the process of healing it takes quite some time. Healing the mind is the most difficult thing, they can heal the wound and everything but the mind is very difficult. I got into that stage myself when I actually went to Brussels(Belgium) for rehabilitation,” Wanyonyi said.
At first, he was not interested in any of the activities at the rehabilitation center but his turning point however came when he saw that there were people who were in a worse state than his.
“In there, I was in a room for two days sleeping. On the third day, some lady came to me. She wanted to take me out and I said can’t you see I am sick. I am lying there covering myself, she never left, she stood there for almost two hours until I had to get out. When we left the room, we went to the gym and in that gym I saw wonders,” Wanyonyi narrated.
According to him, he saw people who had lost all their limbs while others had lost their memory and were trying to reconstruct. That made him understand that there was no need for him to complain.
“That was the beginning of my road to recovery. From there it encouraged me now , I must pick, I must go away,” Wanyonyi said.
PWDs in leadership:
I was shot by carjackers somewhere in Ngara; in 1998. I had just left work for home… – Tim Wanyonyi on how he ended up in a wheelchair and his healing process #JKLive pic.twitter.com/Q5hj86jTDl
— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) May 11, 2022
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