‘This is my life’: Woman accuses airline of breaking her wheelchair in viral video

‘Today my heart broke watching my best friend sob because Delta broke her wheelchair,’ says Tiktok user

Geeg DeFiebre said the airline had broken her chair (Tiktok/briscalesse)

A disabled woman “sobbing” because an airline allegedly broke her wheelchair has gone viral after her friend posted a video of the incident on social media.

Model and disability advocate Bri Scalesse shared the video of her friend Geeg DeFiebre on Tiktok on Friday.

“Today my heart broke watching my best friend sob because Delta broke her wheelchair,” reads the caption.

“She kept repeating, ‘This is my life. This is the only way I can live my life.’”

The video has garnered more than 13 million views and two million likes.

@briscalesse

When is this going to stop? ##fyp ##disabilitiyawareness ##wheelchair @geeg_def

♬ original sound - briscalesse

The damage to the wheelchair occurred at some point on a Delta flight between John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Phoenix, Arizona.

“My wheel was warped and mangled when I exited the plane in Phoenix,” Ms DeFiebre told the Daily Dot.

“As soon as I sat down in my chair and saw my wheels, I realized that something was wrong.

“The wheel was so warped that it was impossible to push because it would dig into the side of my leg instead of rolling straight.”

Over footage of her friend visibly crying, Ms Scalesse captioned the video: “People in wheelchairs live in constant fear of airlines breaking our wheelchairs because it happens so often.

“I am so tired of watching my community suffer.”

Ms DeFiebre added: “Wheelchairs are an extension of someone’s body and required for them to be able to move about through the world. They are custom-made, expensive, and take months to get.“

A Delta spokesperson told The Independent: “We’re so sorry that her wheelchair was damaged and have been in touch with her directly to make this right, including support to make repairs to her device.

“We know our customers with disabilities rely on Delta for their travel needs, and we fell short here. We’re conducting a full investigation of what happened, because we must be better.”

It’s far from an isolated incident.

Data gathered in 2019 showed that airlines in the US had damaged thousands of passengers’ wheelchairs in just one year.

Between January and September 2019, US carriers reported having mishandled at least 7,747 chairs – an average of 29 a day.

The actual number of mishandled wheelchairs was likely to be higher, according to disability advocates, who claimed many passengers don’t formally report damage to airlines or are not immediately aware that damage has been done.

The figures were originally reported by the USA Today Network as part of an ongoing project exploring how well airlines comply with American civil rights laws for travellers with disabilities.