An airport can be a trying, difficult place for anyone to encounter, whether it’s being utilized for business or pleasure. The problems with checking in, security, flight delays and lost baggage are headaches everyone has experienced at one point or another, but for those who are handicapped, the airport can be a nightmare brought to life.

As discovered from recent personal experiences, it is sometimes impossible for those who are handicapped to get off a plane or get from one place in the airport to another. My 86 year old grandmother, who suffered a stroke which paralyzed half her body and inhibited her ability to speak, was trying to travel to her granddaughter’s wedding with her own daughter and myself. Upon arriving at one of our connecting flights, it became apparent that there was no handicapped way to get from our arrival gate to the one where our connecting flight was. The normal way to get to it was to go down three flights of stairs, get on a shuttle, go to the next gate, and then climb up another flight of stairs.

Apart from being a pain, that is illegal. The rights of disabled people are numerous, and include the fact that one’s disabilities should not prohibit one from working, moving, education, or the right to vote, so the fact that this airport didn’t have an option for a handicapped woman to go through the airport without having to go through security again is very much illegal. We had to walk my grandmother outside to another terminal (through a thunderstorm, I might add, which made the next two flights fantastically cold) and through security once again.

As if that was not enough, after landing in our final destination, one airline would not permit the plane from another airline to use their jet bridge. They had to roll up steep stairs to the door to allow the passengers off the plane, which is obviously impossible for a handicapped woman to maneuver. They had to use a fork-lift-hybrid, used to roll the drink carts off the planes, to try to remove my grandmother, and yet, because of her disabilities, she was unable to walk across this narrow strip of metal to the cage to be lowered to the ground. They had to call in police officers and they were discussing calling firemen to come to carry her to the ground, but they eventually got an aisle chair on wheels, strapped her into it, rolled her into the cage and got her finally on the ground. Again, major problems with the law.

Airports receive information ahead of time when a plane is carrying a handicapped person so a wheelchair can be waiting at the gate to provide a speedy removal from the plane. When these airports, however, learned about this handicapped woman, they brought her to a gate that was impossible to escape without inconvenience and did not authorize a jet bridge. Many handicapped people avoid leaving comfortable areas because they are afraid of being unable to get around with ease or causing problems for others. The laws put in place are supposed to combat those fears and make it possible for these people to live as comfortably as they can and do what they want, but common places like airports have still not taken the steps to prevent these awful occurrences. Disabled people are a minority group no one talks about, and they deserve to have their rights protected as much as anyone else.