Rodney Hodgins, a man with spastic cerebral palsy, was left to crawl off a flight in Las Vegas after the airline failed to provide necessary wheelchair assistance.
A British Columbia man is speaking out after he was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight in Las Vegas when the airline failed to provide the wheelchair assistance he required. Rodney Hodgins, who has spastic cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair, was travelling with his wife, Deanna, to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.
The couple, who are accustomed to traveling every year, were aware of the standard process for assisting passengers with disabilities. Typically, after all other passengers have exited, an airline employee brings an aisle chair – a narrow version of a wheelchair controlled by handles – to help the individual off the plane.
However, following their late August flight from Vancouver to Las Vegas, Rodney was informed by a flight attendant that no help or aisle chair would be provided, leaving him to find his way to the front of the plane independently.
“How am I supposed to get to the front of my plane when I can’t walk? If I didn’t need a wheelchair, I wouldn’t have been sitting there,” Rodney commented on the absurdity of the situation.
Left with no other option, Rodney was forced to lower himself to the floor and drag himself from row 12 to the front of the plane, an experience he described as being in “excruciating pain.” Deanna was left to crawl behind him, aiding him as best she could, while the flight crew, pilot, co-pilot, and cleaning staff watched without intervening.
Rodney and Deanna Hodgins travelled to Las Vegas in late August to celebrate their wedding anniversary.Â
In a statement, Air Canada explained that they “use the services of a third party wheelchair assistance specialist in Las Vegas” and that they are now “evaluating other Mobility Assistance service partners in Las Vegas” following the investigation into this “serious service lapse.”
Deanna described the ordeal as “dehumanizing,” stating, “You are watching this man grab the back of a chair and then struggle and fight while I’m on the ground, crawling on the ground moving his legs, and we’re trying to get him to the front of the plane. I’m fighting his spasms trying to lift up his legs.”
Upon reaching the front of the plane and accessing his motorized wheelchair, Rodney was in shock. The airport manager apologized profusely, but the couple’s vacation was marred by Rodney’s pain in the days following the incident.
On their return flight, an Air Canada representative advised the couple to go through the airline’s formal complaint process. Rodney later received a call from a customer service representative offering a $2,000 flight voucher, but he explained that monetary compensation was not his objective.
“I thought — it’s not about that. I want you to change your policy so that you always have somebody there all the time when a person with a disability is coming off that plane. I just really don’t want this to happen to another person,” said Rodney.
Deanna added that they are hoping for a formal apology from Air Canada, stating, “I truly believe [Air Canada] violated my husband’s human rights.”
This incident echoes another recent high-profile case in which Canada’s chief accessibility officer, Stephanie Cadieux, tweeted her frustration after Air Canada forgot her wheelchair. Cadieux has since reached out to the Hodgins to offer support and advice.
The couple emphasized the need for airlines to be more accommodating towards passengers with disabilities, sharing that their trip to Las Vegas had been planned eight months in advance and that Rodney’s wheelchair had been altered specifically to fit the plane’s cargo area.
“I just thought… they don’t care about me,” Rodney concluded.
Additional Information: For passengers with disabilities, airlines are required to provide necessary assistance, including the provision of aisle chairs and personnel to aid in boarding and deplaning.
