[nfbwatlk] Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C. activist crawled off his flight. But the humiliation was far from over.

[Arielle Silverman]

How awful. And this demonstrates that when people foist unsolicited
assistance on us at the airport, especially unsolicited wheelchair
assistance, it's more than just embarrassing or inconvenient for us:
It's an injustice to those who actually need the assistance.
Arielle

On 10/29/15, Debby Phillips via nfbwatlk <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi all, I thought this might be of interest to some of you.  I
> was quite outraged for this guy.  And the comments were
> ridiculous!     Debby
>
>  ---- Original Message ------
> From: "Craig Phillips" <craphi at gmail.com
> Subject: Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C.  activist crawled
> off his flight.  But the humiliation was far from over.
> Date sent: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 07:19:49 -0700
>
> Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C.  activist crawled off his
> flight.
> But the humiliation was far from over.
>
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/28/str
> anded-
> by-airline-a-disabled-d-c-activist-crawled-off-his-flight-but-the
> -humil
> iation-was-far-from-over/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_p3most
>
>
>
> By Michael E.  Miller
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/michael-e-miller>  October
> 28 at
> 4:34 AM
>
>
>
> Photo
>
> D'Arcee Neal in London, where he went to graduate school.
> (Courtesy of
> D'Arcee Neal)
>
> D'Arcee Neal dutifully waited for a wheelchair.
>
> He had just flown five hours from San Francisco to his hometown
> of D.C.
> without a bathroom break because his cerebral palsy prevented him
> from
> using the United Airlines toilets.  Then he had waited the usual
> fifteen
> minutes for the plane to empty before someone could help him exit
> in a
> special narrowly built wheelchair.  But the wheelchair never
> came.
>
> So D'Arcee waited.
>
> And waited.
>
> And waited.
>
> Until finally, he could wait no longer.  As stunned flight
> attendants
> looked on, 29-year-old Neal fell to the floor and proceeded to
> drag
> himself roughly 50 feet to the airplane's door, where his own
> wheelchair was waiting for him.
>
> "The craziest thing was that while that was happening, the
> attendants
> just stared.  They just couldn't believe I was doing that.  It
> just
> seemed so unfathomable to them," Neal told The Washington Post.
> "By the
> time they came to their senses I was already out of the plane."
>
> By now, you might have heard of D'Arcee Neal.  His horrific Oct.
> 20
> flight made international news.  "Outrage as man with cerebral
> palsy was
> forced to crawl off plane," ran one headline
> <http://www.inquisitr.com/2523210/darcee-neal-outrage-as-man-with
> -cereb
> ral-palsy-was-forced-to-crawl-off-plane/>  in the U.K.  "Severely
> disabled man on plane crawls down aisle," read another
> <http://www.examiner.com/article/d-arcee-neal-severely-disabled-m
> an-on-
> plane-crawls-down-aisle> .  And when United Airlines promptly
> issued an
> apology and a check, Neal appeared to be on his way to joining
> the long
> list of people who have been abused and then paid by the airline
> industry.
>
> What you probably haven't heard, however, is what happened
> afterwards:
> the ignorance, the Internet comments, the wild accusations and
> the
> humiliation of crawling on one's hands in public - relived over
> and
> over online.
>
> "There is a contingent of the Internet thinks that I'm faking or
> I'm
> opportunistic and I just want to get paid," Neal said.  "Somebody
> even
> said that I was doing it to raise the profile of Black Lives
> Matter,
> which I was really offended by."
>
> The first thing you should know about D'Arcee Neal is that his
> life has
> been pretty darn tough.  The D.C.  native is African American,
> openly gay
> and disabled - a triple minority - after all.
>
> "I was born with cerebral palsy," he told The Post in a telephone
> interview Tuesday night, recounting how he wasn't allowed to
> pursue
> acting in college because the university theater wasn't
> wheelchair
> accessible, and how his expensive wheelchair was stolen last year
> <http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Darcee-Neal-Wheelchair-S
> tolen-
> in-Logan-Circle-264838691.html>  while he watched after a
> friend's
> apartment.  "I deal with all kinds of craziness that able-bodied
> people
> just have no clue about."
>
> But the second thing you should know about him is that he
> definitely
> doesn't want to be pitied.
>
> "I'm an activist, a storyteller, I perform with The Gay Men's
> Chorus of
> Washington [D.C.].  I perform," he said.  "I just got done doing
> a
> production of 'Little Shop of Horrors' at The Arlington Players
> as the
> plant.  We had a five star review.
>
> "I do things professionally in my life.  And yes I have a
> cerebral
> palsy.  And yes I use a wheelchair.  But it doesn't make me any
> less of a
> person.  It doesn't make me any less of a citizen.  People around
> the
> city are just like 'oh,' when they see you.  The bar is lowered a
> little
> bit.  And that is infuriating.  I'm almost 30 years old.  I pay
> my taxes.
> And they look at you like, 'I'm just really sorry.  I'm sorry
> that that
> is your life.' Well, I'm sorry you feel like that."
>
> His attitude has propelled him to London for graduate school and
> into a
> career advocating for better treatment of the disabled.
>
> In fact, last week's incident occurred as Neal was returning from
> a
> work trip to San Francisco where, as an employee of United
> Cerebral
> Palsy, he met with Uber executives to discuss improving the
> "ride-sharing" service for people with disabilities.
>
> But it was another company that needed his advice, it seems.
>
> Neal's return trip to D.C.  began badly.  Instead of asking him
> to board
> first, as is airline policy, a United gate agent in San Francisco
> forgot and seated the rest of the plane, he said.  As a result,
> it was
> nearly impossible for Neal to take his seat, even with the help
> of the
> special, narrow aisle wheelchair.  (His own chair is too wide for
> the
> aisles and was stored during the flight.)
>
> It was disembarkation, however, that would prove disastrous.
>
> His plane touched down at Ronald Reagan Washington National
> Airport at
> around 10 p.m.  on Tuesday, Oct.  10.  First, Neal waited as his
> fellow
> passengers streamed off the aircraft.  Then he waited for a
> United
> employee or contractor to come and help him exit the plane as he
> had
> entered: on the narrow aisle wheelchair.
>
> But as the delay dragged on, and Neal sat on the plane with only
> a few
> flight attendants, his patience began to wear thin.
>
> "When the staff didn't show up, I asked the flight attendant what
> was
> going," he said.  "They were just doing their job, and they told
> me,
> 'Just stay here.  Just wait.  I'm sure he'll be here in a few
> minutes.'"
>
> After about 35 minutes, Neal asked again if someone was on the
> way with
> a wheelchair, repeating that he really needed to use the restroom
> in
> the airport.  "He asked me why I couldn't use the bathroom on the
> plane," Neal told The Post.  "But I can't even get up to the
> toilet
> bowl" in the tiny airplane lavatories.
>
> After about 45 minutes, Neal had had enough.  When the flight
> attendant
> told him his own wheelchair was waiting for him just off the
> plane,
> Neal decided it was time to go it alone.
>
> "Honestly, I expected the flight attendants [to help me] once
> they saw
> that I have a disability, once they knew that I had to use the
> bathroom," he said.  "The next words out of their mouths should
> have
> been: 'How can we assist you? What can we do to make that
> possible?'
>
> "I'm not going to use the airplane bathroom when a perfectly
> acceptable
> [wheelchair accessible] bathroom was 10 feet from the door to the
> terminal.  If you could just let me off this plane, then I could
> go to
> the bathroom the regular way instead of you trying to cram me
> into this
> closet.
>
> "So at that point I got out of my chair and onto the floor and
> started
> crawling up the aisle," he recalled.  "One of the flight
> attendants
> turned around and was like, 'Oh, you can't be serious.'"
>
> He was.
>
> Neal crawled roughly 50 feet on his elbows from his seat in 11 F
> to the
> door of the plane and then onto the jet bridge, where his
> wheelchair
> had been left for him.  Some of the flight attendants were
> stunned.  One,
> however, had the presence of mind to bring Neal's bag and help
> him up
> the steep jet bridge to the terminal.
>
> Neal was angry, but he was also used to it.
>
> "This is the third or fourth time this has happened" with United,
> he
> claimed.  Neal said he had missed several connecting flights
> because of
> similar delays in receiving wheelchair assistance, but he had
> never
> resorted to crawling off the plane - until now.
>
> "I mean, it's humiliating," he told NBC Washington
> <http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Man-With-Disabilities-Cr
> awls-O
> ff-Plane-After-Airline-Fails-to-Assist-Him-336076281.html> .  "No
> one
> should have to do what I did."
>
> Still, he didn't want to make an issue out of it.
>
> "I went to the bathroom and went home," he said.  "I didn't say
> anything
> to anybody.  I wasn't being rude or anything.  I was just tired
> and
> frustrated and it was annoying."
>
> Neal arrived home just before midnight, fell asleep and then
> headed to
> work the next morning as if nothing happened.  When he came home
> that
> evening, however, he got a call from United.
>
> Someone had complained about the incident - but it wasn't Neal.
> It was
> one of the flight attendants who felt Neal had been neglected.
>
> Now a United representative was telling him that the airline had
> "dropped the ball," the situation was "completely unacceptable"
> and
> that the employee responsible had been suspended, according to
> Neal.
>
> Those claims generally match a statement United sent to CNN
> <http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/25/us/united-airlines-disabled-man/>
> on
> Tuesday.
>
> "As customers began to exit the aircraft, we made a mistake and
> told
> the agent with the aisle chair that it was no longer needed, and
> it was
> removed from the area," the airline said
> <http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/25/us/united-airlines-disabled-man/>
>
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