COVID-19 TEST EPIC FAIL AT MARLINS PARK IN MIAMI

DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION, 3 HOURS AT SITE FOR 15 MINUTE TEST, 10 DAYS WITH NO TEST RESULTS AND ULTIMATELY LIED TO THAT WE WERE NEVER TESTED (WE HAVE PROOF THAT WE WERE THERE)

To check our health and make sure of our COVID status for those we come in contact with, we went online and scheduled appointments for the two of us.

We had that 8 a.m. first appointment of day 9-10, but took nearly 3 hours.

Follow up calls have produced an idiotic and painful answer that they have no record of our being there.

We have proof – online appointment print out, paper work plus grease pencil marking on back of our vehicle that they only do onsite.

It doesn’t matter, they failed and lie about it.

While we’re recounting the endless list of failures, here's a hint for testing site.

Don't blare loud music at tent where they draw blood/take nasal swab.

There is car engine, traffic, MIA flight path, generator noise.

You are talking through a mask, through your closed window to a person wearing a mask - no one can hear.

At free test site, train staff to accommodate people with disabilities.

Guy in charge did major discrimination, telling my wife to drive home without getting tested. I had to start phone video to make him responsive.

Tens of thousands of people with disabilities deserve better

Staff said they could not enter wheelchair ramp van to swab my wife and draw her blood.

They ignored my clear, booming voice explaining she could roll out the ramp (full or to top of it) to give them access to her same as rest of drivers rolling down their window.

Clueless, rude, discriminating staff forced delicate door to $75,000 wheelchair ramp without asking first.

This can cause damage, detected weeks later, that will destroy my wife's mobility.

Proof that we were persons tested #34 and #35 on September 10, 2020 at Marlins Park

To document this, I started taking video on my I-Phone.

The staff then threatened to remove me from the site without testing I kept exercising my basic American right of documenting incompetence and discrimination via video on my phone.

Got blood results onsite, (negative for both of us, bud advised that nasal swab results also must be read to know for sure) then told swab takes max four days for results.

Nothing online, so my wife calls to see what's up after four days.

She reached a totally unhelpful person who claimed she had zero record of our even having an appointment for September 10, when we wasted nearly half a day trying to get tested.

Worthless call to info number took more than an hour -- 20 minutes with an imbecile who insisted we had no appointment & were not tested (we have proof otherwise) then 40 minutes on hold waiting for a supervisor -- then hung up on before reaching a human.

We have no symptoms, but when you take the time to go in -- trying to be responsible -- you want to see your results.

My wife has multiple underlying conditions and is undergoing a treatment that lowers immunity.

She needs test results now.

To date, three wasted hours at Marlins Park (should take 15 minutes) = disability discrimination + unprofessional behavior + lost test results. 

My wife, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, needs results -- but it is clear that none are coming and the company making tens of millions off of testing for Florida could care less.

Who is going to fix this?

 

 

 

AAA DISCRIMINATES AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

I URGE YOU TO CANCEL YOUR AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE CLUB MEMBERSHIP

The most common response is probably "what, that still exists? I thought it died with my grandfather."

Who needs an archaic, out of touch, worthless group when we can design travel maps online, make bookings from our smart phone and get roadside service with our car warranty or onboard system?

All very true. AAA is dying.  And as it circles the drain, it cuts resources and treats people with disabilities like little children.

The only reason we've been members? Well, we've had it almost 30 years and back when we started, you needed travel brochures, TripTiks and other stuff from AAA -- it was before the internet.

Why do we continue with it?

My wife has a specialized van equipped with a wheelchair ramp and 6-point turn driver's seat that allows her to travel independently, with her wheelchair, for her high level job.

But such a van costs more than $60,000 plus $1k per month to maintain.

The only specialty repair shop worth a damn is all the way up in Pompano Beach, 40 some miles from our Miami home.

AAA Plus gives tows, for free, to your repair shop of choice. Most roadside assistance and onboard coverage only gives a tow to the nearest shop for general repairs.

Thus our reason for staying.  Plus, AAA has trucks that come out and install batteries for only the cost of the battery.

Wheelchair vans in hot climates kill 48 month batteries in less than 2 years, so having AAA come out with a fresh heavy duty battery also paid for the membership dues.

But last night, my wife's van died. AAA had just put in a new battery a month ago.

The truck came out, checked the system and found she had a dead alternator -- which the mobile trucks do not have.

So we phoned AAA and asked for a first thing tow to a local shop that knows how to baby my wife's van.

They normally don't schedule ahead, but this is a reasonable accommodation.

We even held, for nearly an hour, to talk to a supervisor. We were flatly turned down.

This meant there was no chance of my wife getting her van repaired and back on the road in time for her to conduct a scheduled Americans with Disabilities Act training that would have improved the lives of thousands.

So we get up early and call AAA.

My wife very politely and clearly explains that she needs a flat bed tow truck.  A regular "hook" truck will damage her costly and sensitive van.

The dealership, van conversion company, her specialty wheelchair van mobility expert in Pompano and the corner garage that takes care of non wheelchair access repairs ALL HAVE STATED EXPLICITLY that she should never take a tow from something other than a flatbed.

So we get a call that the tow truck is 15 minutes way.  Yet it arrives an hour later.

And it's a regular hook truck.  And I go ballistic.

My wife calls, is put on hold, ignored, treated like a third class citizen.

Finally, a supervisor in customer service comes on.

He explains that some customers ask for a flatbed truck when a regular truck will do.

He goes on to basically treat my wife like a two year old. Ignoring her, being patronizing and acting like a wheelchair user is some drooling fool who cannot speak for herself.

This would be like calling a black man "boy" or treating a college professor African American woman like a stupid child, based on centuries-old stereotypes.

Listening on speaker phone, I start cussing him out.

Meanwhile, the AAA affiliate driver of a standard tow truck is empathetic and tries to give enough battery charge for me to drive the van.  Of course, I can get in with out using the dead wheelchair ramp.  So this option would not work if I were on the road.

The driver and AAA say it will take 2 or more hours for a flatbed tow truck.

We could have had one at 6 a.m. like we needed, but of course the call center on Tuesday night discriminated against my wife and refused an ADA accommodation, so why should be surprised that we are given patronizing, patently offensive, 10th class citizen status on a Wednesday morning?

We were treated so poorly, that we finally let the regular hook driver try to gingerly tow my wife's van to the nearby shop. If he had to take a highway, this wouldn't be an option. So two professionals would have lost a day's work each waiting for the never arriving flatbed.

We got to the shop.  Who knows if my wife will be on the highway a month from now, and chassis damage from the non flatbed two causes a crash that kills her.

You would think the AAA would be the No. 1 organization on earth working to prevent such a thing.

But because it is dying, incompetent and discriminatory toward people with disabilities, we may well have doomed my wife's expensive, fragile, essential wheelchair van to permanent damage that could result in very serious injury or death.

Thanks for nothing AAA.  You should refund 30 years worth of our dues, plus interest, and offer free lifetime tows to make up for the events of the past 24 hours.

Oh, and maybe training your call center folks to respect people with disabilities and listen to their specific requests and accommodate their needs with professionalism.  You might want to mix that in to your repertoire....before you flush down the toilet with every other obsolete thing from the 20th century like VCRs, rotary dial land lines and tape decks.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 7

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

The entire American Airlines flight crew from the Miami to Mexico City flight should go straight to hell.

I send them all straight to hell for smugly refusing to move two pieces of crew luggage into the ample overhead bin space on the far from full flight.

The selfish pig bastards deserve to lose their mobility.

Maybe then they would drop their inhumane “me first and to he'll with a disabled person’s needs attitude” when they realize a working wheelchair is crucial to my wife's mobility. 

The Mexico City St. Regis’ fabulous service only served to underscore how much contempt and mean spiritedness America Airlines harbors towards its disabled guests who pay trough the nose to be treated like garbage unfit to fly. 

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 6

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

In Mexico City’s airport, a kindly customs agent gave us enough tape to make do with very primitive repairs to Heidi’s wheelchair so we could limp to the taxi stand.

We explained during check in that American Airlines wantonly damaged Heidi’s wheelchair and asked if anything could be done while we got situated in the room.

We hoped for a repair man miracle.

The stellar St. Regis made believers of us.

The St. Regis engineering crew arrived within minutes to our luxury room and started hand crafting enough parts to get Heidi's wheelchair in working order for the rest of the visit to the big city. 

For those keeping score, St. Regis crew - even on sacred Christmas Day - deserves to go to haven for the way it patiently rescued Heidi from a week of no mobility due to an airline’s extreme negligence.

 

Our sad tale of how disabled consumers are forced to fly the unfriendly skies continues tomorrow December 5.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 5

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

Cargo stowage of fragile wheelchairs causes breakage, half ruined trips and little beyond a sneer and finger pointing us toward the baggage claim.

That’s right.

Wheelchair damage is not considered a human being issue, it’s considered a baggage issue.

That says a lot about how American Airlines, and all carriers for that matter, classify disabled customers as things that are a problem to deal with – not as human beings with mobility issues.

The Obama Administration would do well to investigate this situation and pass landmark legislation that improves and protects the rights of millions of disabled business people and leisure travelers who can barely use air travel for mobility.

Our sad tale of how disabled consumers are forced to fly the unfriendly skies continues tomorrow December 4.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 4

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

The crass and unapologetic crew ambled right past us and stranded Heidi in a painful position with a broken wheelchair. 

This kind of despicable behavior toward disabled fliers is the RULE, not the exception from American Airlines.

We want to support American, because it employs thousands in our hometown of Miami.

We have to patronize it because American dominates the trade for Latin America and beyond at our local Miami International Airport.

But time and time again, its workers are rude beyond belief and they seem to almost take delight in manhandling Heidi’s wheelchair.

Our sad tale of how disabled consumers are forced to fly the unfriendly skies continues tomorrow December 3.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 3

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

Here’s a recap of our 2011 holiday season nightmare.

Even though our Miami to Mexico City flight had tons of room to stow Heidi's wheelchair on board, the surly crew whined about saving the closet space for their own roomy luggage storage.  

Heidi's wheelchair, her legs in effect, was tossed down below with zero regard for how essential it is for her mobility.

When it came up from the cargo hold in Mexico City, it was severely damaged.

This was Christmas Day, so there was no prayer of finding a repair shop that would be open. 

Our sad tale of how disabled consumers are forced to fly the unfriendly skies continues tomorrow December 2.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 2

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

When Heidi’s compact, but expensive wheelchair gets stowed in cargo, it breaks.

We currently are awaiting a damage assessment from American, to see if it will even pay to fix the damage it did.

Of course the air carrier will never offer to compensate us for the hour wasted at the airport, waiting in a long line to deal with poorly trained baggage complaint people.

Nor will they compensate us for the pain Heidi suffered when the wheelchair malfunctioned as a result of American’s damage.

She hurt her hip and will suffer for weeks.

This unacceptable disability discrimination from American Airlines is an almost exact repeat from the week between Christmas and New Year’s 2011.

Our sad tale of how disabled consumers are forced to fly the unfriendly skies continues tomorrow December 1.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SHOULD BE FINED -- PART 1

WHEELCHAIR USERS ARE ABUSED

AGAIN AND AGAIN BY AIR CARRIERS

We sat down to write about our nearly perfect trip to Mexico City last year.

It was facilitated by our outstanding hosts at the St. Regis Hotel Mexico City.

What wasn’t perfect?

Our treatment from American Airlines.

American, and all airlines, treat disabled people horribly.

We never have risked ruining Heidi’s $20,000 power wheelchair by putting it in the hands of American Airlines.

We have been burned time and time again even when traveling with a simple, lightweight manual wheelchair.

It happened again this Thanksgiving, with American refusing to place Heidi’s collapsible little wheelchair into the closet on board.

Our sad tale of how disabled consumers are forced to fly the unfriendly skies continues tomorrow November 30.