“Depending on the needs, a custom chair is required. A one-size-fits-all essentially fits none.” Agree
“These custom chairs that fit the individual’s bodies are very expensive. As to how she originally got it is irrelevant” Agree
“The issue is that United broke it, failed to replace it under their own policies, and she incurred severe injuries directly tied to the issue.” Disagree, this is a secondary issue.
The primary issue is survival. While how she got the original chair is irrelevant, how she survived while waiting for that original chair to be designed and built is not. Why did she continue to use the UA chair instead of reverting to past measures?
Furthermore there are limits to liabilities. And even if UA had initially owned up to replacing the chair, how long would that take? I very much doubt their was a replacement chair just waiting to be bought.
The bottom line to me is that if the chair is that critical, there needs to be a backup system incase of catastrophe. Where was that backup system?
I met a paraplegic woman at church who had a very nice wheelchair. She had one of those lightweight titanium wheelchairs and was able to put it in her car and drive a specially equipped car. Before, she had a regular hospital regulation style plain wheelchair that was bulky, heavy and hard for her to maneuver by herself but she sang the National Anthem at a sporting event and a medical equipment rep happened to be in the stands. He got in touch with her and his company donated that custom chair to her.
Agreed. Most people think that people who use devices that require electricity whether it’s for oxygen, heart pumps or even iron lungs (yes, they still exist) but doctors work with the patients to make sure they have generators, batteries etc. in case of an outage.