Dear Q Friends, I'm wondering if anybody here has any airplane traveling horror stories they wouldn't mind sharing either on-list or off-list...
My own story: (Turn your eyes if you already have fears) I was traveling in 2005. My wheelchair had simple, laminated instructions on how to move it and lock it using the "clutches" because I always remove the armrest with the joystick that powers the chair. Sometime between surrendering my chair at the airport and unloading the chair when I arrived at my destination (luckily home), it turned out somebody didn't read the neon signs indicating the use of clutches. My 17 inch wide wheelchair became a 14 inch chair! In other words, it was crushed. At one point I was told the chair got wedged somewhere and wouldn't move. It was stuck between the cargo door and conveyor belt. Later, the incident report was filled stating the chair was damaged by falling from the conveyor belt. I looked at the wheelchair as they brought it to me on a pallet. Both rear tires were squashed inward enough to crush the battery box and puncture the gel batteries inside. The solid metal seat pan was buckled. I spent the next two months in a series of 3 different rental wheelchairs (paid for by the airline responsible) that didn't properly fit me and could not accommodate the custom features I needed for everyday use such as a tilt and a higher back. For anyone who for my introduction yesterday, the sore I talked about begin while using these rented chairs because we couldn't get them to fit properly. And such was the beginning of my current situation... I had my surgery in April 2006. That's when MRSA was introduced... not during the surgery, but in having the open wound and treating it prior to surgery. As I mentioned yesterday, it reopened almost a year later. We treated the best we could with the best doctors and clinics we could find. I started getting a fever and my doctor told me to go to the ER... I did. That's when my other surgeries began. For the most part, I've been in bed ever since. I say "for the most part" because recently I have been able to begin getting out of bed and sitting in my WC on weekends. The airline did pay for a new wheelchair for me. I started to use it 2 months after my original wheelchair was destroyed. The 2 months was the time it took for the airline to finally agree to rent and deliver the best-fitted chair available, authorize the building of a new chair for me, and expedite the building process so I wouldn't need to rental chairs longer. (Had the expedited new chair of an authorized immediately, I would've had it in 3 weeks rather than 2 months.) So far, I've missed this entire year of work since August. I've exhausted my Family Medical Leave, my Short-Term Disability Insurance payments, and my extended 30-day Short-Term Medical Leave from work. I'm now applying for Long-Term Disability Insurance (I've paid for through my employer for 11 years) and applying for SSDI. I'm hoping to return to work in August, 2008. My prognosis is still unknown but the hyperbaric oxygen seems to be making things more hopeful. ... not quite end of story, but where I am at this point. I realize this is quite an extreme example of an Airline Horror Story, and the only thing I've ever heard that might be worse was a man who sat in a plane and realize the ground crew forgot to load his wheelchair. He saw it sitting on the tarmac just as another plane rolled up to the gates and the front tires of the plane rolled over his chair! So I'm curious... does anybody here have a "wheelchair damage" horror story involving travel? I'm not looking for a contest. I know worse things have happened and I know damage has occurred that was fairly minor. I'm just wondering how many times airlines or other modes of travel have botched a process or neglected to read instructions enough that damage occurred to anybody's wheelchair(s). BTW: For anybody who might think this is a reason NOT to travel by plane, please note that I have taken 3 trips between the time I received my new wheelchair and when I was finally hospitalized. Will I travel by plane again? ABSOLUTELY!!! Thanks for reading. I hope you feel comfortable sharing if you've had any difficulties yourself or if you know of someone else who did. Best regards to ALL, -- Tod
