United Airlines has been sued by an elderly man who says staff took his wheelchair just as he was boarding a flight and then injured himself in a fall before he reached his seat.
Greg Poienski, 66, filed the lawsuit in federal court recently.
Poienski, a resident of Palm Bay, Florida, was flying United from Orlando International Airport to Newark on February 26, 2017.
He was heading to the Northeast to attend his father’s funeral, according to The Orlando Sentinel.
‘After he cleared the jet way, plaintiff’s wheelchair was taken away, and he was forced to move on his own locomotion to his seat,’ according to the lawsuit.
‘Almost immediately after plaintiff entered the airplane, he fell in a violent fashion, suffering a fractured spine, along with several other major injuries.’
According to the lawsuit, Woienski needs a wheelchair to get around. He has not recovered from his injuries, the suit alleges.
United did not respond for comment, though its policy for disabled passengers states that the airline is ‘dedicated to providing convenient and comfortable service to all of our customers.’
The airline’s web site says it offers aisle wheelchairs ‘transferring non-ambulatory customers to and from their seats on the aircraft’.
United says every plane in its fleet with more than 60 seats has an onboard wheelchair designed to fit the aisle and that flight attendants are ‘trained in the use of this wheelchair and will assist you.’
Just days before the trip, Woienski created a GoFundMe page seeking to raise money for the airfare after learning of his father’s death.
The crowdfunding campaign, whose goal was to raise $600 for the trip, exceeded it almost threefold. It raised a total of $1,755.
‘My father passed away on February 21st in hospice,’ he writes on the GoFundMe page.
‘He was 98, a WWII veteran. He is to be buried in Cranford, New Jersey, this Monday the 27th, with military honors.
‘I am 65, on permanent disability, and I rely on crutches to get around.
‘I live in east central Florida. I only get paid once a month. I have $67 left in food money for the rest of the month.
‘My fiancee and I found direct roundtrips at $403.40 bereavement cost for me and $592.00 regular last-minute cost for her.
‘The last time I saw my father was two and a half years ago on Father’s Day, June 2014.
‘Whatever you can afford to help me get to my dad’s funeral would be greatly appreciated.’
Woienski’s lawyer, Andre G. Raikhelson, said the airline has ‘simply ignored us.’
Woienski is seeking unspecified damages from United.
This is the latest allegation of passenger abuse leveled at the Chicago-based company, which is the third-largest airline in the world.
Last week, a United said it will ‘assume full responsibility’ for the death of a puppy who was put in an overhead bin on the orders of a flight attendant during a three-hour flight from Houston to New York.
Later in the week, United staff members mistakenly sent two dogs placed on two separate flights to the wrong location.
Next month will be the one-year anniversary of the filmed incident which saw Dr. David Dao, a physician from Lexington, Kentucky, violently dragged off a plane just before it was set to take off from O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
After the video of the incident went viral on social media, Dao and United settled for an undisclosed sum of money.
Last summer, Robert Tigner, 73, sued United for $1million after he was filmed being shoved to the ground by an airline employee at an airport in Houston in 2015.
That incident was also filmed, this time by security cameras.