United Airlines Drops Wheelchair Passenger, Faces Lawsuit

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United Airlines is facing another lawsuit as a passenger who was being transported from a wheelchair to their seat, was dropped causing her to fall landing on her shoulder and tearing muscles in her arm. This happened back in September on a flight from Houston to Austin, and the woman has since racked up over $200,000 in medical bills.

United has had a bad streak lately starting with the United Airlines Passenger Was Dragged Off a Plane Due To Oversell. United has apologized and will be covering the cost to repair her wheelchair, however after this lawsuit it could end costing the airline a lot more.

a plane at an airport

Per Fox News,

A handicapped Florida woman, who claims she fell after an airport employee dropped her, has filed a lawsuit against United Airlines and its contracted workers.

Erica Fulton, of Largo, Florida, was flying out of Houston’s Bush Airport with United Airlines last September when an airport employee picked her up to help her into her seat.

The employee reportedly continued to reassure Fulton that he “got†her while transporting her from her wheelchair to her seat, but Fulton said she knew he didn’t.

“Once he got me totally upright, I just saw this look of panic in his face,†Fulton told WFLA. “I said, ‘Oh my God, he’s gonna drop me.â€

Fulton, who has a degenerative disease that requires her to use a wheelchair, said she fell over, and all of her weight landed on her right shoulder and tore muscles in her arm.

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Comments

  1. I don’t get this. The employee simply helped her. She/he didn’t purposedly intend to injured or harm her. If she (passenger) cannot move herself from wheelchair to seat, why travel alone?

    You expect someone to help you, but when that someone fails, you sue him/her?

    Too bad the passenger didn’t lost both of her arms. I surely hope so after the suit…..

  2. @James If I tried to clear weeds from your property with a flame thrower that I didn’t know how to use, and caught your house on fire, would you sue me or than me for trying?

  3. @james

    An employee for a restaurant is helping you cut your steak because both your arms are injured but his hand slipped and accidentally gorged your eye, blinding you in one eye for life.

    Oops. He was only trying to help and you can’t sue. Are you serious?!

    LOL

  4. About ten years ago on a vacation I badly injured both of my ankles (five breaks in one of them). Travel insurance arranged for a United first class seat home with arrangements with United to get me on and off the airplane. When we landed, they didn’t drop me, they just didn’t show up at all. I ended up having to “walk” off the airplane and down to the tarmac myself. The only person left was the stewardess who just kept apologizing (it was not her fault). Virtually any airline will provide a wheelchair and help the passenger off of the airplane. United managed to find a wheelchair, but could not find the ramp to get me off the airplane. Oh yeah, the seat on the airplane was broken too. And yes, they never answered the letter that I sent to them after the fact.

  5. @Jd: if I consent to receive your help, I have no right to sue (unless you are lying by ensuring you know how to use flame thrower). If I didn’t consent, I’ll sue you. Not because you are helping, but because you are doing something to my property without my acknowledgement.

    @Wowoo: having both arms injured, why would I go to a restaurant alone? If I was with a companion, its his/her responsibility to assist me, since he/she knows my injured arms condition.

    You guys surely have some weird logic…..

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