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

Thu Oct 29 19:22:42 UTC 2015

I am sitting here hurting so badly for this man. We were at Sea Tac and the
gal just left us on the tarmac. She never gave us any directions. I just
said Jake inside. He found the steps and surprised the flight attendant as
no one was supposed to board for another half hour. She made the complaint
herself to Alaskan of how we were just dropped off. I was so frightened and
my imagination just raced. So this man and his plight, ug. No one should
ever treat someone like that. Debby just like how WCB treats Sarah, like she
doesn't belong just because she has other disabilities.

Thanks for sending the article, ug, ug, sy. 

Becky and Jake      

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Debby
Phillips via nfbwatlk
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 10:18 AM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Debby Phillips <semisweetdebby at gmail.com>
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C. activist crawled
off his flight. But the humiliation was far from over.

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.

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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