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

Arielle Silverman arielle71 at gmail.com
Thu Oct 29 17:42:58 UTC 2015


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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