Distressing TikToks show wheelchair user trapped at Atlanta International Airport after selfish Porsche driver parked illegally and blocked doors to her modified van in ‘ableist’ incident that she said left her ‘alone in the dark’
- A disabled woman found herself stranded at the airport when she found that her handicap-accessible van had been boxed in by an illegally parked Porsche
- A frustrating back-and-forth between airport parking attendants and the police led Yvette Pegues, 38, to call the situation ‘more than unfair’ and ‘ableist’
- A spokesman for the Atlanta airport said the driver of the Porsche’s illegal behavior could result in fines and citations
- Pegues’ Tik Tok documenting the incident has so far amassed 1.4 million views
A TikTok posted by a disabled Georgia woman went viral after they clips showed her arriving at the Atlanta airport only to find her handicap-accessible van being blocked by an illegally parked Porsche.
In a video captioned ‘BLOCK and LOCKED into parking space…(again)!,’ Yvette Pegues, 38, documented her Friday evening arrival at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport only to find her handicapped van blocked by a blue Porsche SUV.
‘I can’t even get out of the parking because my van has been blocked by someone who is illegally parked,’ she said.
‘I have a six-foot ramp that comes out of my car to exit the vehicle. In this case I needed at least six feet,’ she added.
Pegues, who is paralyzed from the waist down, then tried turning to airport parking attendants for help.
‘I called parking several times. Parking said, ‘Call the police.’ Police said, ‘Call parking,’ so I was vacillating between the two,’ she said. ‘I’m out here alone in the dark and can’t get home.’
Yvette Pegues returned home after a long flight to the Atlanta airport only to find her handicap-accessible van boxed in illegally by a Porsche
A confusing back-and-forth with airport parking attendants and the police did not resolve Pegues’ problem and her husband had to come pick her up
She says this is not the first time someone has boxed in her specialty van, but it is the first time she decided to record and post it to her TikTok, where it has attracted 1.4 million views
To make matters more challenging, Pegues suffers from a cognitive delay.
Hours of back and forth with various parking authorities all to no avail mentally and physically exhausted her, in addition to her phone battery running low.
Eventually her husband came to retrieve her and it wasn’t until the next day that a tow truck arrived to remove the Porsche so she could get her van home.
Pegues expressed frustration not just with the airport’s handling of the accessibility issue, but with the driver who ignored the stickers on her van that read, ‘Extra Space Needed for Ramp or Lift.’
‘Those are one of the few moments where I wish I had legs that worked,’ she said. ‘It feels more than unfair, it feels intentional, it feels ableist to be perfectly honest.’
Pegues’ van needs at least six-feet of space in order for her to get in via the ramp. She’s placed stickers explaining the situation on her windows
Prior to becoming disabled following a spinal stroke during surgery nearly a decade ago, Pegues was a network systems engineer pursuing a PhD at Harvard
Since becoming paralyzed, Pegues has pivoted into a career as a speaker and advocate for culture change
According to a WSBTV report, a spokesman for the Hartsfield-Jackson airport said drivers like the one that boxed in Pegues’ van could face fines and citations.
The spokesman also said of Pegues that she ‘has a great deal of experience at the Airport and served as both chair of the Airport’s ADA Committee and as an ADA volunteer.’
‘We have reached out to her to determine just what happened and will implement changes in our responses to situations like this,’ he added.
Pegues has T-10 paraplegia from a spinal stroke she suffered nearly a decade ago. Prior to her illness, Pegues had been a network systems engineer pursuing a PhD from Harvard.
In subsequent Tik Toks posted to her page, Pegues thanked viewers of her initial video for offering advice and said that ‘education, training and disruptive change is needed for airport police and parking management co. to change policies, enforce ADA laws and hold offenders accountable.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk