Hi, we are Jon and Wendy, married for 40 years we have enjoyed our own separate hobbies and joint hobbies over the years. Jon’s main hobby is metal detecting, something he has been doing for over 50 years, since he was 9 years old. It is something he is very passionate about.
Unfortunately, just over 3 years ago, Jon was prescribed a very strong antibiotic (Ciprofloxacin) for a “suspected” infection, which it turned out he didn’t have. After taking just 2 tablets, Jon suffered a serious adverse reaction, which resulted in him being hospitalised. The antibiotic had attacked him at a cellular level, causing damage to all his soft tissue, muscles, tendons, cartilage etc. This has led to Jon being quite disabled.
He has gone from riding large motorbikes to needing a stair lift, a bath lift and using a power chair. Our house now looks like a showroom for an orthopaedic catalogue. We have every conceivable aid to try and make Jon’s life (and mine) a bit easier. The first year was the worst, with some very dark days. Jon was very limited in his movements so spent the whole time in the house.
Jon’s Plan
He decided he was going to continue metal detecting. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be how it used to be. For one he can’t walk far, just a few metres, or stand on his legs for very long. His shoulders are damaged as well, so he can’t swing or dig either. How on earth was this going to be done, you may ask? Well, Jon had a plan – he comes up with a “plan” for everything. The first bit of the plan was to convince me to swing and dig, basically all the hard work!
Detecting wasn’t something I have ever been interested in, photography is my thing, so why not combine the two suggested Jon.
How could I refuse? He bought a second hand 4-wheel drive power chair (Magic Mobility Extreme X8), after selling a motorbike to finance it. But then the problem was transporting it. We borrowed the money to buy a wheelchair access vehicle, which has a ramp and a winch. It was also fitted with hand controls, as Jon can no longer use his legs to drive. He coached me on digging the “perfect” hole, I kid you not, in our garden. Bought a splitter for dual headphones for his Fisher F75 – he loved that detector – and off we went to a very old permission.
Well, it kind of worked, but the leads were everywhere, my spatial awareness isn’t great, so I was tripping up and getting tangled in the wires left right and centre. So not a great first time, but we could see it had potential. I came home from work one day and Jon said he had been doing some research and phoning round some metal detecting dealers, he was after a completely wireless detector and the only one is an XP Deus, but (yes there was a but) and that is the Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) from both detector and power chair.
The power chair came with a manual with one whole page dedicated to warnings about how EMI could affect it! None of the metal detector dealers could advise Jon on whether we would be able to use the XP with the power chair, with one of them saying it would be impossible – there was no way we would be able to use them together because of them interfering with each other. But Jon being Jon, he did it anyway! A few days later, a nearly new XP Deus 2 arrived.
Our first trip out detecting
The weekend came so off we went. We had no idea what would happen with the EMI; I had visions of Jon going round in circles or shooting off down the field, so it was switched on with trepidation. Nothing happened, they didn’t interfere with each other at all. His plan had come together, and it worked perfectly.
I have the Deus 2, Jon has the controller, so we do it as a real team. He changes the settings and presses the pin pointer mode and I do the swinging and the digging. It works brilliantly. We started with me wearing the XP WS6 headphones and Jon using an adapter into the controller and his normal headphones, but I found that the noises, straight into my ears, drives me potty and we like to have a conversation whilst we are out detecting, so now, we don’t wear headphones.
The power chair performs great too and we needed the 4-wheel drive to do what we do. We have found some lovely items. Jon likes his coins, but I prefer the artefacts, my favourites being: a post medieval hawking whistle and an early 20th century put and take spinner. We haven’t found gold yet, as a duo, but maybe 2025 will be the year!
We have proved disabled detecting can be done and Jon gets just as much enjoyment out of it as he used to. If you would like to see us in action, check out our Youtube channel. (disabled adventures 4115)
We really hope this has inspired someone to give it a go.
Jon and Wendy
Did you know that the NCMD offers free Carer protection – our insurance covers a carer, at no extra cost, to assist an NCMD member who may need help whilst detecting. Benefits of Membership
