Disability Travel - Looking for some good suggestions for a traveling quadriplegic

a good friend of mine has a son who, as a result of a terrible accident, became a quadriplegic seven years ago. He flies to Craig Hospital in Denver for some speciality treatments and various follow up work. Transfers from his power wheelchair to other chairs to plane and back often result in some banging him around. BTW He's in his late 20's.

Any thoughts on how he and his father could make a case for a universal mount of some sort allowing a power chair to go directly onto the plane into a removed seat location to limit all transfers? Who might they make their case to?

Hope this is the correct forum to ask in. Thanks in advance

My sister is a quadriplegic (though thankfully not complete) from a car accident in which she was a passenger over 15 years ago. I certainly understand about the banging around when flying.

I doubt that your request would come in being. That would mean taking out two seats on every plane and the chances of them being used is very small. In addition, I don't know of any power chair that can make it down the narrow airplane aisle.

I'm sympathetic to the problem but reconfiguring an airplane for one passenger is problematic. Each row of seats are on one frame so the whole row has to come out and even then I doubt the needed depth would be enough.

Wish I had a better idea to offer.

fortyyearvet, we clarified your thread title so folks would know in advance what information you were seeking.

And I think a better fit for this thread will be in our Disability Travel forum where the helpful folks there may have some additional suggestions.

Please follow the thread in it's new home.

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Cholula
TS/S Co-Moderator

Interestingly, there's a fairly lively discussion about this going on right now at CareCure: how can the airline industry continue to not comply with progress? (http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showthread.php?t=129143), in which a former Boeing engineer (and paraplegic) discusses how different safety standards are between cars and airplanes. You might want to check in there and join that discussion as well.

I'm inclined to think that more progress can be made in improving transfers; that the idea of lock downs or some sort of universal chair mount just won't get any traction. The Department of Transportation has just issued new rulings and updates of the Air Carrier Access Act, which means it's not too early to influence the next round of changes. I pay attention to Candy Harrington's Barrier Free Travels (http://barrierfreetravels.com/serendipity/) blog and Scott Rains' Rolling Rains (http://rollingrains.com/) blog to keep an eye on requests for public input, and you (or your friend's son) might want to do the same.

By the way, he's in excellent hands at Craig.

I just tried to visualize driving a powerchair down an emergency slide. It was not a pretty picture. ;)

Thanks for helpful posts. I'll visit the suggested forums also.

Realistically I suspect airline accessibility improvement may fall in two categories: Short Term and Long Term.

The key to me and my son (he’s a C4/5 quadriplegic, 32, injured in 2003, rehabilitation at Craig, Denver) is prevention of bruising during airline related transfers. He has a two hour flight to Craig in Denver at least once annually.

Short term, the airline staff should be trained better and likely more often. In early September I had another opportunity (followup surgery) to see Craig staff do my son’s transfers—they’re clearly masters at it. Transfers can be improved dramatically. The question is how do you achieve it?

Long term I suspect someday a power chair will be anchored to an emptied plane seat space. A lot of collaboration will be needed between the wheelchair design/manufacturing community and airlines. Can anyone suggest how to begin?

I have some additional ideas on cost and risk reduction (my field) for airlines if anyone is serious about action. Thanks for any thoughts on next steps.

Welcome to FlyerTalk and the Disability Travel forum!


The key to me and my son (he’s a C4/5 quadriplegic, 32, injured in 2003, rehabilitation at Craig, Denver) is prevention of bruising during airline related transfers. He has a two hour flight to Craig in Denver at least once annually.

Short term, the airline staff should be trained better and likely more often. In early September I had another opportunity (followup surgery) to see Craig staff do my son’s transfers—they’re clearly masters at it. Transfers can be improved dramatically. The question is how do you achieve it?

The short short term answer to your question is that your son and anyone who might be traveling with him must be the experts, and must confidently and aggressively instruct anyone assisting on the correct way to do transfers. Counting on untrained helpers to do this is courting disaster.

I'm not sure there is a short term (only one "short") answer - is it realistic to expect these unskilled workers to do competent transfers on someone whose condition they're unfamiliar with and whom they will probably only see once? Contrast this with rehab/hospital/long term care facility workers who have to be able to do this on a daily basis. Yes, I realize the aisle chair guys are doing it on a daily basis, but how many of their customers are C3/4 quads? (Not something I actually know the answer to.)

I'd be satisfied if they were trained to take direction from the customer, which is not always currently the case.

Long term I suspect someday a power chair will be anchored to an emptied plane seat space. A lot of collaboration will be needed between the wheelchair design/manufacturing community and airlines. Can anyone suggest how to begin?

I have some additional ideas on cost and risk reduction (my field) for airlines if anyone is serious about action. Thanks for any thoughts on next steps.

My extremely uneducated suggestion is that you start with the FAA. Such a power chair and its locking system would have to pass their crash worthiness criteria.

And not that I'm trying to chase anyone away from FlyerTalk (heaven forbid!), but I really do suggest you check out CareCure (http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/), especially the Travel forum, to find some like-minded people who might have more ideas on the next steps. The disability umbrella here is very broad (but not deep), encompassing age, frailty, temporary and permanent conditions, and so on, whereas CareCure is dedicated to spinal cord injury and disorders.