Henry Gong* can't use his legs. For more than a year he has been using a stick to drive his cab around the Corporate Area

Gong was shot in 2008 and lost the use of his legs. But the 39-year-old man decided that being crippled would not prevent him from earning an income so he began using a stick to operate the brake and gas pedals in his motor vehicle.

"Me a jus' one disabled man who is trying to be able. I am motivated because I have ambition and I just don't like to beg, trust or borrow," Henry Gong told THE WEEKEND STAR yesterday.

The jovial father of six children said that he has been driving for over 15 years. "I have my two legs, it is just that they are not functional and so I have to use a wheelchair. Driving taxi is how I know how to make a living and this is how I have been taking care of my family for years."

It was while working in May 2008 that Gong was shot. He said this happened after he got in an argument with a passenger and a licensed firearm holder intervened. The case is still before the courts but Gong had to make a living so he found an answer.

"During my recovery it was a cripple man who gave me the idea that I can use the stick. He tell mi seh dat me can still drive and him mek di stick wid a rubber ting under the bottom so that it can grip di pedal dem. It was hard at first to get used to it; but what I did was to do a three-month course in defence driving," Gong said.