Vilma Soltesz was a four hundred and twenty five-pound woman who died after
being kicked off of three airplanes for her weight. The obvious discussion
happening right now is: Was it a violation
of the Americans with Disabilities Act
to kick her off the planes
or would it have been a violation of airline safety to allow her on the plane?
So the story is basically this: she was on a holiday trip to Hungary,
she was refused a seat on three different airline flights, okay.
First she went uh... uh... She tried, she planned to return on October
fifteenth and she needed treatment for her kidney disease and for diabetes
Her wife, uh his, Janos Soltesz's wife, was already seated on a KLM
flight
and KLM staff told her, "Listen, we don't have a seat belt extender
and the seat back can't support your weight. You're gonna need to get off.
They got off the plane, waited in the airport for hours, and eventually were
told to drive to Prague
for a Delta flight
back to the US.
They drive the five hours to Prague
and Delta tells them that the airline's plastic wheelchair couldn't hold her
weight
and that they couldn't put her on the sky lift elevator.
Eventually, their New York travel agent booked them on an October 22nd
flight--mind you, this is a week later--to New York via Frankfurt on a Lufthansa
flight.
Which, supposedly, was going to be able to accommodate her size.
A fire department was brought in to help move her into three seats that were
assigned to her. They couldn't lift her out of the wheelchair.
Again, the airline said, "Listen we had connections to make. We couldn't get her
in the seat,
we had to get her off.
Now her condition started to worsen as I mentioned--she had diabetes and kidney disease.
They chose in Hungary not to seek treatment because they believe that
Hungarian doctors would not be able to, they weren't gonna be familiar with
her medical condition. I don't know if that means broadly her condition or
specifically
her specific case, I don't know.
And two days later she died and was buried in Hungary.
What's your reaction?
Well, my first question is, how did you get there?
They got there on a flight, they initially flew there
uh... there's no indication. They flew there on September 17th, no
indication at all about whether there was
trouble getting her on the flight deck. I can understand
why uh... why airlines could not accommodate her. I mean, that there's a
point where you become a hazard to other passengers (Okay.) and I think this is one of
those situations. At the same time,
uh... I feel bad for her, I mean, it's a horrible situation but you should know better if
you weigh this much you should know that things can go horribly wrong if you're
going to try to fly. Then you shouldn't do it. The question about the ADA--the
Americans with Disabilities Act. One question is whether this would even
apply because that took place in another country, it is an American airline, et
cetera, so we don't really know but
let's assume ADA restrictions do apply.
The law says that
reasonable
attempts need to be made it to accommodate the person. That's the
letter of the law so some would say
425 pound woman should not have been flying and that
reasonable attempts were made: the fire department was put in place, seatbelt
extenders were attempted to be found, three seats were allocated. I really don't know
where this is going to fall. It's an incredibly sad story and
it's a valid question of were there any issues at all with her flight
over to Europe initially?
Because why would things be so different then versus trying to get back home? Right.
And obviously from the point of view the airlines, this is a
very rare situation
uh... but I think resemble attempts were made, I mean, you dispatch the fire
department to help a morbidly obese woman try to get into her airplane seat (It seems
more than reasonable.) when they
presumably might be needed to uh...
you know in an emergency so (Should the airline have been proactive when she flew
to Hungary but then you would say well if they were being proactive saying you
might not be able to get back, how would they be able to get her to Hungary in the first place?
A lot of, lot of questions.) I mean, I would say if you're this big and
you want to get over there,
take a boat, then a train.
Is that reasonable?
Yeah, I think that's more reasonable than expecting everything to go swimmingly.
It's not even that easy to.. how do you do.. it's not like trains have a lot
more room than planes. Anyway, we have to move on but a lot of questions here.
Trains do have a lot more room than planes.
I don't know that all of them do.
Okay, I don't even know what we're arguing about at this point. Anyway I don't know that Louis' idea
of taking a boat and a train is really the solution.