All that would have been required from an attendant was to be cherry, interested willing to walk along side her to the next gate.
How was your flight?
Was the weather nice in Hawaii?
How are you off to visit? Oh, I have an Aunt Tilly too.
I think we might want to go the right here.
Perfect. Ah, I see Gate 23 up ahead.
We’ll get you checked in.
You get the idea. She could refuse my help, but could not get me to go away.
The question might be, would you have stuck by her if you had no suspicion that she was incompetent? This was a case where you would probably have had to use physical force to gain compliance.
Would your employers expectations guide you to believe that she was the customer or that her family was the customer? It may well be that the "disability" that prompted her family to hire help was totally her lack of mental competence and nothing to do with her being in a wheelchair. The employee tasked with helping her may have made a decision based on an alternative understanding of what her needs were.