Rodney Hodgins, 49, has spastic cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. Air Canada staff told him he’d have to do without when his flight landed in Vegas. He did without, literally dragging himself off the plane.
When the attendant said Hodgins would have to pull himself off the plane alone, the couple at first thought she was joking – but then she repeated the request.
“I said, ‘Of course I can’t. I’m in a wheelchair. I can’t walk,'” he told the Canadian Press.
Hodgins was forced to use his upper body strength to haul himself past 12 rows of seats, with his wife holding his legs.
In her Facebook post, Deanna Hodgins said the event left the couple devastated.
“It took us struggling, in front of a dozen people as some looked away and others looked on with shame, to get him off that plane … he hurt his legs and I hurt my back – emotionally a lot more was hurt … my husband’s human rights were trampled on and Air Canada won’t respond to us, and never did reach out like they promised,” she wrote. “Rod is the most beautiful human on the planet and didn’t deserve this at all.”
When it blew up online, Air Canada offered him a voucher. The company has recent form on this exact subject.
People choose violence all the time, it’s the violence not chosen that fills me with dread.
