[nfbwatlk] Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C. activist crawled off his flight. But the humiliation was far from over.
Mike Freeman
k7uij at panix.com
Thu Oct 29 20:14:24 UTC 2015
I agree with you, Arielle. On the other hand, airline personnel are, by and
large, in my oopinion, not the sort of people who are innovative and think
for themselves; such behavior is not generally rewarded. And the turnover is
so high that about the time we get one group educated, they've all gone to
greener pa$ture$. So I'm beginning to wonder if some of this nonsense is
just part of the rigmarole we must put up with because we are a minority.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Arielle
Silverman via nfbwatlk
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 1:00 PM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Cc: Arielle Silverman
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C. activist
crawled off his flight. But the humiliation was far from over.
Agreed, that's why I don't like preboarding. When I general board, I'm in a
group with a bunch of other passengers, and it's much easier to find the
right way.
In general, the problem is that people with disabilities have huge
variations in how much and what kind of help they want, and too often,
airlines try to fit us into a one-size-fits-all instead of working with each
of us individually to find out what kind of assistance we do or don't need.
As a result, their resources are wasted on some people while others are
deprived.
Arielle
On 10/29/15, Mike Freeman via nfbwatlk <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Becky:
>
> Did you *ask* other passangers for directions? I think *I* would be
> *glad* that Alaska didn't fuss over me!
>
> Mike
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Becky
> Frankeberger via nfbwatlk
> Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 12:23 PM
> To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
> Cc: Becky Frankeberger
> Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Stranded by airline, a disabled D.C. activist
> crawled off his flight. But the humiliation was far from over.
>
> 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.
>
> 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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