The betrayal of ability

So here's some YouTube video of a Brazilian Candid-Camera-type show where pranks are pulled on unsuspecting passersby. This five-and-a-half minute clip shows a man in a clunky manual wheelchair at the corner of a busy urban intersection. After enlisting someone to help push him across the street, the man stages a tumble out of his chair in the middle of the crosswalk. People rush to help, dragging him fully across the street and attempting to help him into the chair again. At that point the man stands up on his own, revealing that the whole drama and his disability are a prank. Over and over again, throughout the clip, these tricked pedestrians turn violent with the actor, and several times he runs to avoid real injury and assault.



There are several voices in Portuguese commenting during the course of this, laughing at the events, but all I can think of is the anger of these nondisabled people assuming they are helping, assuming things about some stranger that turn out not to be true. There isn't enough time in these encounters for the actor to reveal much of his true intent and the violence is instantaneous upon learning the man can stand and walk. I can't help wondering how someone with legitimate impairments would be treated in the exact same situation, given that we sometimes get assistance thrust upon us unwanted, and given that not all people in wheelchairs are completely unable to stand or even walk.