7/9/2023 0 Comments Airlines spressUnited Airlines said in a statement that it is working with Voorde to get her chair replaced. "They reached out within a few days, which again, it’s like, that's a long time if you don't have other alternatives," she said. Still, Voorde counts herself lucky for having a secondary wheelchair on hand, though she said that it doesn't fit her as well and is harder to operate than the regular chair that was damaged.įor now, Voorde is working with Global Repair Group, a contractor many airlines partner with to handle mobility device damages. "It literally didn't fit through the doorway in the restroom in my house.” "I brought it home for the night until I pulled my backup out of storage," Voorde said. They took me, (and) that was a chair I wasn't able to operate independently, so you're very much at other people's mercy."Įven though she can drive herself, Voorde wound up needing to get her mother to pick her up at the airport because she did not have the same level of independence with the airport loaner chair. ![]() "They ended up bringing an airport wheelchair, like a standard hospital-esque chair that I was able to transfer into," Voorde said. "The gate agents and the people at the South Bend airport were incredible," she said, although the situation was still extremely frustrating. Voorde, 30, who has osteogenesis imperfecta, relies on her wheelchair to get around and said the airport and airline workers in South Bend immediately went into triage mode when they realized her wheelchair arrived broken. Tell us your story: Mobility device lost or damaged by an airline? USA TODAY wants to hear about it "The axle was bent, and the wheel wouldn't have rolled." When Voorde got off the plane in South Bend, it was immediately clear something was wrong with her wheelchair. She'd been flying back to South Bend, Indiana, from Denver via Chicago on United Airlines and United Express and was on the final leg of her Feb. "As we were deplaning, the gate agent that was helping with the aisle chair process was like, 'something seems not right with your chair.' He was just softening the blow," Voorde told USA TODAY. ![]() Watch Video: Influencer shows how she travels the world while legally blindĮmily Voorde was almost home when she realized her trip had not gone smoothly.
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