71 Year Old Deaf Passenger Has Arm Broken By Police During Austin Airport Layover

[mahatmakanejeeves]

71 Year Old Deaf Passenger Has Arm Broken By Police During Austin Airport Layover

by Gary Leff on March 24, 2023

A 71 year old deaf Florida woman was connecting in Austin enroute to Seattle. She was a nervous flyer traveling alone for the first time in her life. Her hearing aid wasn’t working well, and wound up spending 3 days in jail and having her arm broken by police after she was unable to hear instructions from a gate agent – and asked twice to get on an earlier flight.

On September 13, 2022, Karen McGee had a three hour connection and seating herself at her connecting gate. She didn’t hear a gate change announcement for her flight. Her departure time passed, and she didn’t see her flight boarding, so she asked the Alaska Airlines gate agent what had happened. She missed her flight, and got rebooked on a later flight that evening.

However she thought there was another plane at the same gate that would be headed to Seattle (while Alaska and Delta operate the route 5 times daily between them, Delta flights are at the other end of the terminal and this is unlikely) and she asked the agent if she could get on that flight instead of having to wait until evening.

• She was told no, but couldn’t properly hear the explanation.

• So she asked another Alaska agent. That agent called the police.



Credit: Austin Police Bodycam Footage

{snip}

[Lonestarblue]

1. The Austin police force has deteriorated since Manley became chief. We miss Acevedo!

The good news is that the City Council finally fired Spencer Cronk, who supported Manley. I hope Manley will be the next to go.

Breaking a woman’s arm should get these police officers fired, but it probably won’t.

[cloudbase]

4. Acevedo was no prize when he was here in Houston. n/t

[Me.]

2. THey Called The Police

Says it all

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Well, a terrible shame that this went as far as it did.

IMHO, as a profoundly hard of hearing person, I usually go w/ a friend who'll act as my 'translator', I've found that it's safer for me to have such help available for no hearing aid is perfect, especially when you don't know what the surrounding environment is like. Perhaps even w/ a cell phone, when she could have had a friend explain via the call what was going on, would she understand the conversation?

I hope her lawsuit goes very well for her. This is a terrible trespass, and a horrible thing that a hard of hearing person has to endure. She can use the money to get better aids perhaps (they weren't working, the "why' wasn't listed", is she not used to the aids? Was her batteries dead (if so, she should have had, and probably did have spare batteries)).

I'm still shaking my head. There also should have been more patience on the part of police officers, the agents, and the list goes on. Thing is, hearing loss is not observable, that is, you can't see it on a person. You're almost better off putting a hat on, that says "HARD OF HEARING", "HOH", or similar markings on your forehead.

[cbabe]

5. 'This is what deaf looks like' tshirts needed. Like

‘This is what autism looks like’ Ts.

Meanwhile, fire the person who called the police. And file lawsuits.

Feels as if we’ve completely lost touch with our humanity.