Dame Tanni Grey Thompson ‘Had To Crawl Off A Train’
One of Britain’s most successful disabled athletes has told how she was forced to crawl off a train because no one would help her get her wheelchair on to the platform.
Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, who has won eleven Paralympic gold medals, revealed that it was commonplace for her to be left stranded on trains because of a lack of assistance for disabled passengers.
Just two weeks ago the athlete, who was born with spina bifida causing the vertebrae to fully fuse together, had to crawl off a train at midnight.
‘I think it is fair to say hat a lot of disabled people feel like second class passengers because they don’t have the same treatment as everyone else.
‘I don’t expect to be swept in to first class and treated better than everyone else – I expect to have the same experience, and that is often just not the case.’
Dame Tanni retired in 2007 and became a non-executive director of UK Athletics.
Dame Thompson is helping to spearhead ‘A2B for all’, which is aimed at ensuring public transport does not discriminate against disabilities.
The campaign research found that disabled passengers are routinely being discriminated against, with staff refusing them access, being ignored while on board and verbally abused.
Same Difference 
Great campaign might take notice of someone like Tanni. Sometimes I have had to stop the doors of a train from closing because they have forgotten about my husband. Airplane special assistance is also a problem. my blog explains http://onmybiketoo.blogspot.com also a guy at Heathrow is looking into access at heathrow , you can read this on the forums at http://scope.org.uk
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spelling mistake in headline by the way…
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Thanks for pointing out the spelling mistake! It has now been corrected. 🙂
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