Toronto woman injured after falling out of wheelchair provided by Air Canada, husband says
CTV
What could have possibly been Sheila Rizzuto’s last vacation ever was ruined after she fell out of an Air Canada-provided wheelchair and badly injured herself, according to her husband.
What could have possibly been Sheila Rizzuto’s last vacation ever was ruined after she fell out of an Air Canada-provided wheelchair and badly injured herself, according to her husband.
Vito Rizzuto told CTV News that Miami has always held a special place in the hearts of the Toronto couple and their kids. So months after Sheila was diagnosed with glioblastoma — an aggressive form of brain cancer — they booked what they thought might be one of their final visits together to their beloved city.
The Nov. 5 flight from Pearson International Airport marked the first time the couple had been on a plane since February, when two surgeries left Sheila partially paralyzed on her right side. She now uses a wheelchair and has vision and speech impairments.
When they were disembarking in Miami, Vito said, Air Canada agents attempted to place Sheila in an aisle chair — a narrower version of the wheelchair she was travelling with — to get her off the plane. But when the agents couldn’t successfully buckle Sheila into the mobility device, Vito said, they transported her to the bridge unrestrained.
When the couple got off the plane, the two agents who had been assisting Sheila “just left her sitting there,” Vito recalled, as they waited nearly 10 minutes for her wheelchair.
“I spoke to the lady from Air Canada that was standing there, and I said, ‘Where is our wheelchair?’ And they weren't aware that we had a wheelchair. I was like, ‘Okay, how can you not be aware?’”
That’s when she fell.
