never travel nwa if handicapped...here's why

posted: May 27 disabled since assault nov. 7, 2008

My name is Henry Jones, my wife is Robbie. this is my story.
Next time you plan a vacation (or an overseas adoption as was my case), be careful what airline you choose.
I had broken my feet doing volunteer clean-up following Hurricane Ike in late 2008, and had already booked a flight to China for november 6/7 2008, returning in 2 weeks. My wife Robbie and I were very excited about going to get our child, and since we had initially drawn up the adoption with both parents travelling,she could not go alone and return with our daughter, under overseas adoption regulations.
I was treated at Good Sheppard Hospital in Longview, Texas, where the nurse in X-ray was jabbering and not paying attention, when she observed me moving on the x-ray table under someone elses direction. The nurse turned and grasped my right foot (which was shattered) and pulled me toward her. This was not a good thing and I started yelling at her. She apologized and stated that she thought I was falling off of the x-ray table....I spent 3 days and nights with these bones stretched out of place and twisted 15 degrees around counterclockwise....unable to sleep for the pain, I finally twisted the foot back into the proper alignment, stood, and pushed my broken heel bones back into place, and went to sleep.
The next day, a specialist from another hospital came by and reviewed my x-rays...he stated that I would have to have surgery on the right foot because it was twisted and the bones were separated...I explained that it was no longer the case, that I had corrected the alignment..he chuckled with a sign of 'that's impossible' and unwrapped my feet. To his amazement, they were both properly aligned, and I no longer required surgery...I could fly to China to adopt my little girl.
I spent a couple of weeks preparing myself for the flight, foot exercises, etc., to prevent blood-clotting in flight at altitude for so long. Then, a couple of days before getting on the NORTHWEST AIRLINES PLANE RIDE FROM HELL, I went to the bone specialist again. He advised me to start walking with crutches with a little weight on the left foot only, allowing 0-5% pressure on the right, and stating that the left foot was healing ver nicely, the right foot had bone spurs starting to connect the broken pieces of the right foot. I was told that after the two weeks in China, I could use weight on my right foot coming home, and then be re-evaluated, and most likely returned to work at my own business I've spent the last 10 years building from scratch to a $400,000.00 scrap-metal enterprise.
I boarded NWA at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, Texas on 11/06/08 and was the happiest guy on the plane. I had been taking 4 10/650 vicadin per day and 2 time-released 20 mg Oxycodone per day (8a.m., 8 p.m.) and had been managing my pain very well. I had been on crutches a couple of days and was getting around on them nicely (with the left foot). Everything was smooth to Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (NWA's HQ) and then we connected to a flight bound for Tokyo/Narita, Japan.
Here is where my life changes....I utilized my crutches to get to and fro the facilities on the plane, and even to get away from my seat and check out the big bird, killing time, feeling pretty good all the way to Tokyo. When we arrived at Tokyo, we went to our gate (me by wheel-chair) my wife toting the luggage and crutches.
At the gate, the desk-clerk insisted that I allow a Japanese-looking female to push my wheelchair to the aircraft. I declined, advising her that people were too fast over bumps, rough, etc. while pushing. She insisted that it was airline policy (first I'd heard of that, and the last time I would hear it on the trip). I allowed the woman to take hold of my wheelchair, and she began the descent through the skybridge to the plane as my chair transformed into the space-shuttle out of control. We were going backward so fast that I became concerned. I asked the lady to slow down (in English) but it did no good.
When we reached the plane, she spun my chair around on a centrifugal path that had my legs travelling about 80 mph (or so it seemed) when they crashed into the wall of the skybridge at the entrance to the airplane.
I never cried when I broke my ribs at 18, crashed a superbike at 18, requiring a spleenectomy, a year off work, an open abdomen stuffed with betadine and gauze for 7 months....I never cried when I broke my l-4 vertebra and received a narrow l-3/l-4 disk space...I didn't cry when I was shot at in the line of duty as a peace officer, or when I crashed a cruiser at 77 mph causing the trauma plate in my bullet-proof vest to crack my chest.
BUT I DAMNED WELL CRIED FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS as I was taking more oxycontin and hydrocodone than prescribed to attempt to dull the pain...to no avail.
I went thru a months supply (140) 10/650 hydrocodone in the first week in China. The second week, I used up the remainder of my months supply of oxycodone as an attempt to bear the situation. Stewardesses and flight crew members, a pilot or co-pilot were at the doorway and observed it all. They apologized for the incident. That is what I have received from NWA. oh, except for 20,000 bonus miles which have to be used with paid miles. I have not worked since, my right foot is deformed and the bone is healed in place where the airline employee placed it. I can walk about 100 feet per day, then return to my recliner for more drugs.
I will make my last payment on my once successful sole-proprietorship scrap-metal-recycling business (the only one in the county) next week, then I am tapped out of last years income. I will default on the loans I took out last year for major expansion, including a late-model semi-triuck/trailer for transporting materiel to the steel-mill. In a couple of months they will be coming to take it all away....nwa has stalled with my measly $63k claim until it will do me no good. They are now handing it over to their insurer, who I sent a 100 page synopsis, and 45 days later he is requesting all of this info, as if I'd never sent it. My business will be in ruin before they acknowledge receipt of any such documentation.....
Northwest Airlines was contacted several times, most recently last night, with no response today. I will have a ruined perfect credit rating, a lost business, and no way to provide the surgeries my special-needs adopted daughter will require over the next few years.
BOYCOT NORTHWEST/KLM/DELTA airlines whenever possible, please fly Southwest, or some other airline, don't put your future in these guys hands. They are of satan and have no regard for human suffering.
If anyone in the media reads this, I would love for you to do a nationally televised spot on this.
'God Bless'

written by  NWA_Victim on May 27, 2009 from Narita, Japan
from the travel blog: trip from Hell...america to China via NWA/KLM Airlines
tagged GodTravelNorthwestAirlinesNWAKLMDeltaWorldperksSkymilesHandicapInjusticeBoycott
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