Real Inclusion

The ride home from the International Seating Symposium in Vancouver is blessedly short: B.C. to Seattle to Southern California. The week had been as amazing, but as tiring, as ever, and I was dozing on my Seattle-to-home flight when the captain’s voice woke me.

If we have any doctors or other medical professionals on board, please identify yourself.

A physician and two nurses went to assist a young woman in first class. From my aisle seat just beyond the first-class curtain, I saw them reassure her, take her blood pressure, jot down notes, listen to her breathing, and reassure her again for two hours. During our descent, as flight attendants buckled themselves into seats, one nurse wedged herself into the leg space of a seat across from her patient. She sat and braced as wheels touched down, and never stopped smiling at her patient.

As we coasted to the gate, the captain’s voice came on again: Folks, we have medical personnel meeting our flight, so please stay seated. We’ll let you know when it’s okay for you to deplane.

That’s when the gentleman across the aisle from me began to talk.

“It’s not like she’s passed out. I can see her head is moving. She’s not lying on the floor. How long is this going to take?”

The guy next to him snickered. Paramedics came aboard and talked softly to the woman, who wore an oxygen mask but walked off under her own power. The doctor and nurses went with her.

During all of this, I had been wondering, not for the first time: How easy is it for a person using a wheelchair to evacuate an airplane in an emergency or urgent situation? With a wheelchair in the cargo hold or stored in the first-class closet, how quickly could such an evacuation take place? How willing would other passengers be to assist, given the complaining I just heard?