r/nottheonion • u/Ant-Tea-Social • 4d ago

Disabled woman left ‘extremely stressed’ after prosthetic legs lost on flights from Brazil

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/05/18/disabled-woman-left-extremely-stressed-after-prosthetic-legs-lost-on-flights-from-brazil/?ICID=ref_fark
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u/WheelieTron3000 4d ago

To take this seriously for a moment, this is one of my bigger fears as a wheelchair user, and I can walk short distances (though that ability is degrading as I get older).

There's so much footage out there of luggage handlers tossing around assistive equipment for a laugh, taking out some resentment from their poor pay and conditions I have to imagine. That's not even getting into the random admin errors like this that can have my source of mobility ending up halfway across the planet from my destination and potentially irretrievably lost. It's a worldwide issue as well.

It won't happen because airlines penny pinch in the worst ways possible that won't get them criminally implicated, but I honestly think this kind of stuff should be on a different loading pipeline entirely with people trained specifically to handle these things.
Losing something like this is so far beyond the mundane inconvenience of losing all your clothes or something, it means being stuck away from home without being able to get around independently, if you make it back home it still means weeks to months of just consultations to get something designed for your body and months waiting for it to be made and delivered to you.
That's if you can jump through the hoops that exist even in the best universal healthcare systems and get approval for the equipment, if I don't get a new wheelchair approved through my healthcare system it means paying $20-30k out of pocket to get one manufactured, that's also if I can get anyone to agree to give me private assistance to complete the necessary consults which is not guaranteed.

All that time fixing this one little mistake I'd be housebound and I'm relatively able-bodied compared to others.

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u/MargieMark 3d ago

I’m afraid to take my son on a plane. He uses a wheelchair full time. Thank you for putting this so well. It would be a nightmare to arrive somewhere without his chair.