Posted on 04/30/2019 3:00:08 PM PDT by Morgana
FULL TITLE: 'I had to crawl': Amputee seeks damages after United Airlines and airport security seize scooter batteries
Stearn Hodge says he will never forget the humiliation of having to drag his body across a hotel room floor during what was supposed to be a vacation celebrating his 43rd wedding anniversary — because a security agent at the Calgary International Airport and United Airlines confiscated the batteries he needed to operate a portable scooter.
"Having to crawl across the floor in front of my wife is the most humiliating thing that I can think of," said Hodge. "It unmasks how real my disability is … I haven't been the same since."
The 68-year-old retired contractor from Kelowna, B.C., lost his left arm and right leg in a 1984 workplace accident. He now relies on a portable scooter powered by lithium batteries.
But on a trip to Tulsa, Okla., on Feb. 26, 2017, an agent with the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) and a United Airlines official told Hodge to remove the $2,000 battery from his scooter and fly without it, as well as his spare battery.
In making the demand, both employees cited safety concerns.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
A fire extinguisher. You ought get one. You'll marvel at it
:-))
I know a person with an electric wheel chair.
When she flies she does not take her electric wheel chair to the airport; someone helps her with a regular wheel chair.
If she wants an electric wheel chair at her destination, she arranges for it.
Lithium batteries.
I guess no one told the man before the flight (or he did not check) that he’d have to make arrangements for wheel chair assistance at the airports, and an electric scooter at his destination.
I have synpathy for him; that he was uninformed beforehand about his flight requirements.
This is not Congress. It’s Canada.
The proper solution is for the airlines to have loaner scooters or personnel to push wheelchairs for the flight, and then provide a battery at the destination.
Listening to the bleating snowflakes like the ones on this demand that explosive batteries be shipped is batshit crazy in this age of jihad.
Years ago we used to detonate lithium batteries in the field and batteries for a PRC 77 are nowhere near as powerful as a scooter battery.
I feel sorry for the guy, and someone from the airlines or the airport should have helped him board. That doesn’t magically transform allowing explosive batteries on the plane into anything resembling a sane policy
He should have simply taken a burro on board. Seriously this is inexcusable. He obeyed the rules and still had to deal with power hungry petty douche nozzles.
Because he had obtained the necessary permission to have them in his carry on luggage. Which is what the IATA rules called for.
“Lithium-ion batteries are a potential fire hazard, but global standards issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) allow people with disabilities to travel with compact lithium batteries for medical devices in carry-on luggage.
Hodge said no one from CATSA or United Airlines would listen to him or read IATA documents he had printed out, showing his batteries are permitted on board if an airline gives prior approval. Hodge had received that permission.”
“Lithium-ion batteries are a potential fire hazard, but global standards issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) allow people with disabilities to travel with compact lithium batteries for medical devices in carry-on luggage.
Hodge said no one from CATSA or United Airlines would listen to him or read IATA documents he had printed out, showing his batteries are permitted on board if an airline gives prior approval. Hodge had received that permission.”
Did you read the article?
“Lithium-ion batteries are a potential fire hazard, but global standards issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) allow people with disabilities to travel with compact lithium batteries for medical devices in carry-on luggage.
Hodge said no one from CATSA or United Airlines would listen to him or read IATA documents he had printed out, showing his batteries are permitted on board if an airline gives prior approval. Hodge had received that permission.”
Sounds like you didn't read the article. He showed up with printouts of Canadian regulations saying it was okay with prior airline permission, and printouts of that permission.
At last. Somebody bothered to read the article. Thank you.
Right, the fact that he had printouts of the regulations permitting batteries with airline permission, and airline permission proves that he was the one who was uninformed.
If unable to use canes, we don’t fly. The airlines don’t care even a little bit because our business is so small. I wouldn’t fly even if guaranteed a scooter or chair at the other end.
They will have to drive.
At 6 mph.
You’d lose that bet ...
Motorized wheelchairs can be rented at the local medical supply shop.
Yep. I think I’m with the airline on this one. If he wanted his scooter so badly elsewhere, I’m afraid he needed to rent one there. Or at least a battery for one.
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