On October thirty first, beloved incapacity rights advocate Engracia Figueroa, 51, died following a hospitalization that her attorneys instructed the Hand in Hand group was the results of “problems from accidents she sustained when United Airways destroyed her {custom} wheelchair final July.”

After representing Hand in Hand at a July 2021 Care Can’t Wait Rally and Communities of Care artwork set up in Washington, D.C., Figueroa traveled residence to Los Angeles with United Airways. In the course of the course of that flight, Hand in Hand says that “United Airways destroyed Engracia’s wheelchair, which was custom-designed to assist her spinal wire harm and left leg amputation.”

Upon studying of the injury, Engracia Figueroa was pressured to attend within the airport for practically 5 hours — seated throughout that point in a handbook airport wheelchair. With out the advantage of the pressure-relieving options of her personal wheelchair, she developed a strain sore.

In keeping with Hand in Hand, United Airways fought to disclaim Figueroa a substitute wheelchair for months, throughout which period she was pressured to make use of a substandard loaner wheelchair “that was not correctly fitted to Engracia’s physique.” The loaner wheelchair induced the strain sore to worsen, resulting in subsequent medical points and in the end to 2 extra hospitalizations. The sore turned contaminated and required emergency surgical procedure to take away an contaminated bone and tissue. Figueroa handed away on Sunday, October 31, 2021.

The group wrote, “All of us at Hand in Hand are heartbroken, shocked and enraged by Engracia’s pointless demise. This loss ought to by no means have occurred. Whereas we’re reeling from the layers of injustice this tragedy makes seen, we’re holding Engracia’s tenacity and resolve as our guidepost.”

Engracia Figueroa’s demise adopted an airline’s negligent dealing with of her wheelchair. The potential for a mobility gadget to be returned inoperable is the best worry that many wheelchair customers have when considering air journey.

Like Engracia and lots of different disabled folks, I depend on a fancy rehab energy wheelchair for mobility and rely upon its tilt and recline options to alleviate strain as a safeguard towards strain ulcers. Following my automobile accident, I developed such an ulcer and it took a number of surgical procedures and greater than a yr to heal. As a result of danger of an infection, strain sores are life-threatening and I’m continuously in worry of reopening that outdated wound.

Engracia Figueroa’s demise was avoidable, as a result of all injury achieved to wheelchairs by airways is preventable. With the right funding within the coaching of bags handlers — and the acquisition of mandatory tools to soundly load and retailer mobility units within the cargo maintain — wheelchair injury might be eradicated. Figueroa’s demise ought to be a wake-up name, and it is a chance for airways to do what the Nationwide Academy of Sciences now says is feasible: securing wheelchairs within the plane cabin. Storage within the cargo maintain is pointless and is usually a factor of the previous.

Whereas United will rightly bear the accountability and disgrace for Engracia Figueroa’s pointless demise, it might have occurred to any of us and on any airline. Knowledge from the USDOT’s Air Journey Client Report reveals that U.S. airways mishandled 834 wheelchairs within the month of July 2021, one among which was Figueroa’s. For every broken wheelchair, there’s a disabled individual whose independence, mobility, well being and security are restricted — and whose life very nicely could also be in jeopardy.

It’s time for motion.

Relaxation in energy, Engracia Figueroa.

On a private word, I had the chance to satisfy Engracia Figueroa a number of occasions in California. As soon as, I participated alongside her in a spotlight group to debate security and accessibility in air journey. She was a pleasant individual, a shining star, a fearless advocate — and I supply my condolences to the household, mates and group that she so dearly cherished.