An Airline Damaged Her Wheelchair So Disabled Social Media Took Care of It


Last weekend, three wheelchair-using friends set out from New York City to vacation and meet up with a few other friends in Phoenix, Arizona. Gabrielle deFiebre, Brianna Scalesse and Lucy Richardson were fully vaccinated and excited to get out of NYC and enjoy some of the social life we’ve all been missing for the past year-plus. But when they got off their Delta Airlines flight, they were met with a awful yet all too common surprise: the power assist wheels on deFiebre’s chair had been destroyed along the way.

@briscalesse

When is this going to stop? #fyp #disabilitiyawareness #wheelchair @geeg_def

♬ original sound – briscalesse

DeFiebre was obviously upset. For many quads who use power assist wheels, it can be next to impossible to get around independently without them, especially in an unfamiliar city. But then something great happened. After Scalesse posted the video on TikTok, it immediately started gaining traction on social media, with thousands of people watching, liking and commenting on it. Gina Schuh, a disability advocate and fellow quad who lives in Phoenix, happened to have the same model of power assist wheels and offered them for deFiebre to use while she was in town for the weekend.

With deFiebre mobile again, the group set out to enjoy themselves as much as they’d been planning on before some careless airline employees messed it all up.

An airline-damaged wheelchair didn't keep this group of women from having fun.

What’s more, while they were in Phoenix, disabled social media went after Delta to put the pressure on to get them to replace deFiebre’s wheels. Just check out the hundreds of people who flooded an entirely unrelated Instagram post from Delta with comments about deFiebre’s situation.

Instagram screenshot of Delta post, show plane on runway, comments all say "how about you replace her wheelchair" or related.

And surprise, surprise, after some “we are reviewing what happened” corporate-speak, Delta got in touch with deFiebre, offering to replace her very expensive power assist wheels. Scalesse and deFiebre got on TikTok again to thank everyone for the support.

@briscalesse

Update on @geeg_def story. Thank you for all your support, empathy, and solidarity. #disabilitiyawareness

♬ original sound – briscalesse

As deFiebre posted in an Instagram story, “disabled people shouldn’t have to worry about airlines destroying their wheelchairs.” But they do and it’s terrible. Fortunately, when deFiebre needed it to, the disability community rallied. Schuh offered to let her travel home with the borrowed power assist wheels, and deFiebre, Scalesse and Richardson have made it back to NYC without further damage to any of their mobility equipment. deFiebre is in contact with Delta and hopes that the company orders her a new set of wheels as quickly as possible. “This isn’t the end of this story,” deFiebre says. “With all of this momentum, I hope that something will change.”

She’s pushing her followers to support the Air Carrier Access Amendment Act, a long-overdue piece of legislation that would provide a number of new protections to make air travel more accessible for people with disabilities, including better stowage options for assistive devices and increased penalties for damaged wheelchairs and mobility aids.

On Wednesday, the advocacy effort got a boost when U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran and wheelchair user who has been an outspoken proponent of disability rights, shared Scalesse’s video on her Instagram feed. “I know from personal experience that when an airline damages a wheelchair, it is more than a simple inconvenience. It was like taking my legs away from me again,” Duckworth commented. “Every traveler deserves dignity and respect.”


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Linda I. Slone
Linda I. Slone
2 years ago

Sadly, I have had this experience several times with different chairs, over the years.I learned from Southwest Airlines that they put a wheelchair in its own container.Maybe….. And JetBlue tags the chair with notes on handling.I use those two airlines only. For a manual chair I always insisted it be stored on-board in the closet. I didn’t have power assist wheels so I don’t know if they’d fit in the overhead bin; that’s where I would have my big wheels go if the closet had other items.

Robert S. Volland
2 years ago

My own personal experience of a disaster, that was corrected. Wy wife is a quad and uses a power chair. We flew on American Airlines – New York to Chicago. We checked the wheelchair at the gate and my wife was brought on the plane with an aisle chair. While waiting for the flight to board, we watched my wife’s chair being brought to the plane on a small flat bed truck. The wheelchair was upside down, resting on the controls. I immediately went to the cockpit and explained the situation to the Captain. He went down to check it out and came backhand told me that the American ground crew told him that was the proper way to handle a wheelchair – unbelievable. At any rate we got to Chicago and the controls were destroyed and American Airlines did not want to do anything at all. I was in a shouting match and a police office heard me and literally demanded that the American Airlines personnel help me out. They did by providing a loaner and promising to have the wheelchair repaired before we went back home. They kept their promise, but without that police American Airlines would have tried to do nothing. They never even sent me a note of apology

Baelyn
Baelyn
2 years ago

The first two times I traveled after experiencing incomplete quadriplegia, my vehicles were damaged. Both trips were on Alaska airlines, and both times they gladly repaired my vehicles. In the first case it was my manual wheelchair and the damage did not keep me from using the chair while I was in Chicago. The second time was on my trip home from Austin Texas, and my power mobility device, an Omeo, which is manufactured in New Zealand, was out of service for 4 months.
But in my case the problem was not the airline taking responsibility for damages, it was the way they were handled by baggage handlers. I have a friend who has worked at the Austin airport for many years, and he stated that you would be shocked to see the way things are handled between baggage check, loading, unloading and then transport to baggage claim. There is no accountability for baggage handlers, according to him. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I will not travel with my Omeo again until I have a hard case.

Marsha Cutting
Marsha Cutting
2 years ago

#AllWheelsUp Please check them out and support them.