Sunday, October 25, 2015
United apologizes after disabled man crawls off plane by Shara Jeyarajah p.8
A man with cerebral palsy boarded a 5 hour plane trip. At the end of the trip, he needed to go to the restroom. He asked, as soon as the flight landed, for wheelchair assistance, as he had mobility issues due to his condition, nor could he go to the airplane restroom. Twenty minutes passed, and no one arrived to help him. Finally, he desperately crawled out of the plane. Once he finally left the plane, a wheel chair waited, yet no one attended to the poor man. Instead, they stared. He was upset, but felt that no one cared enough for him to bother to call and report the issue. Thankfully, a worker felt remorseful and reported the incident, and the man called Neal got a formal apology and a $300 reciprocation. The manager at the time was also suspended. Neal was pleased with their response.
This is really sad to read- what really got me was reading that the attendants stared as he crawled off the plane. I'm happy that the manager was suspended, I feel that was well deserved. This connects to U.S. History, because disabilities used to be handled by isolation and being casted out, or even imprisonment. Thankfully, people like Dorthea Dix noticed the injustice and helped establish insane asylums for the mentally ill.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/25/us/united-airlines-disabled-man/index.html
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This story is horrifying. I can't imagine how humiliated Neal must have felt. The fact that the attendants just watched him makes me sick. What gets me is how a lot of the times people just assume that others with physical handicaps are automatically mentally impaired, too, when in reality their minds work just as well as the next person's. I really hope that the airline does more than just apologize. I hope they identify the problem and work tirelessly to make the situation better for for future passengers.
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