Man forced to 'drag himself' off plane after airline didn't give him wheelchair

A disabled man had to drag himself off a plane after the airline said couldn't provide him with a wheelchair before the flight had to be made ready for the next journey.

49-year-old Rodney Hodgins flew from Vancouver, Canada to Las Vegas with his wife Deanna in August for a holiday to celebrate their anniversary.

Rodney has cerebral palsy and uses a motorised wheelchair, while the couple are accustomed to air travel, when the Air Canada plane landed in Las Vegas a flight attendant told them they didn't have a wheelchair available.

According to the CBC, the standard procedure is for the airline to provide use of an aisle chair, a narrow wheelchair which someone can use to make their way down a plane's aisle.

However, they report that Rodney was told he'd have to make his way to the front of the plane by himself as there wasn't time to get a wheelchair on board, before the aircraft had to be prepared for the next flight.

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

At first the couple laughed in disbelief as they thought it was a joke, but there was no punchline to this incident.

In the end, the couple felt as though the had no choice since a wheelchair wasn't going to be provided, meaning the 49-year-old man had to drag himself from row 12 to the front of the plane by his arms.

His wife helped him along but even so the experience was 'excruciating' and Deanna called it 'dehumanising'.

READ MORE:

MAN MADE OBESE PLANE PASSENGER PAY FOR TAKING UP SEAT

FLIGHT ATTENDANT WARNS PART OF PLANE YOU SHOULD NEVER USE

In a Facebook post she wrote: "The crew didn’t want to wait for the team to come assist in getting him off the plane.

"The flight crewman said to us that we would have to 'get to the front of the plane' because 'they had to turn the plane around'."

She said her husband' suffered for days after', and that a dozen members of airline staff watched Rodney drag himself past a dozen rows to the front of the plane.

Deanna Hodgins

According to The Guardian, Rodney was offered a C$2,000 (£1188) voucher by the airline, but he said that wouldn't 'fix the problem', and he wanted to make sure nobody else had to go through the same thing.

The couple said Air Canada 'have failed us in every sense'.

Air Canada have since acknowledged that the 49-year-old didn't receive adequate support.

In a statement they said: "We use the services of a third party wheelchair assistance specialist in Las Vegas to provide safe transport on and off aircraft.

"Following our investigation into how this serious service lapse occurred, we will be evaluating other mobility assistance service partners in Las Vegas."

The couple decided to speak out after seeing Canada's chief accessibility officer, Stephanie Cadieux, call out Air Canada for losing her wheelchair.

LADbible have contacted Air Canada for further comment.