Disabled man ‘humiliated’ after he was forced to wet himself in public at airport after four hours ‘begging’ staff for help to go toilet Olly Vaughan Jones also claims his wheelchair was given back to him broken and an airline ‘forgot’ about him for days when he was stranded

Olly Vaughan Jones has spent ten years living with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

Having been bed-bound for around four of them, last year he promised himself he’d push beyond his boundaries and travel more.

And while he visited Buenos Aires, he was – ironically given what happened to him – filming his experience to encourage other disabled people to feel that they too can venture further afield.

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But the 35-year-old says the way he was treated on his trip – which he took solo – has left him feeling shocked and degraded.

Staff smirking

Caught up in the Gatwick drone chaos, Olly found his flight from the Argentinian capital on 19 December diverted to Paris.

After sitting on the runway for four hours, he says that when passengers disembarked at Charles de Gaulle Airport the next morning, he was left ‘stranded’ at the gate area without his wheelchair which had been left on the plane.

He claims he ‘begged’ staff – from Norwegian Airways who he booked his flight through and the airport’s accessibility team – for help to go to the toilet for four hours, and was eventually forced to relieve himself in public as fellow travellers looked on.

“All I kept getting told was a chair would come in 10 minutes times, but meanwhile I kept getting more and more desperate for the toilet,” he told i.

“It’s panic-inducing when you need to go in public and you can’t. You stare at things trying to distract yourself.

“Passengers sat near me where trying to ask for help too. It just got to the point where I had to wet myself, it was humiliating.

“The worst thing was that there staff at an adjacent desk – I wasn’t sure which airline they were from – who were smirking when I was begging for help and found my distress amusing.”

Read more: Wheelchair users share their train travel horror stories

Smashed wheelchair

After airport staff brought Olly, from Montgomery in Mid Wales, a wheelchair he was able to clean himself up in the toilets. However, the wheelchair was then taken away again once he had got back to the gate area.

“I spent another three hours sat there,” he said. “There was no awareness at all that when you take away a disabled person’s wheelchair it’s like taking away their legs. It makes you feel so vulnerable.

“I had no access to a toilet again, nor any food or drink since I’d been on the runway. I just kept thinking, I have paid for this experience.”

Unfortunately this wasn’t the end of Olly’s troubles. He says he then discovered that his wheelchair had been broken.

“I watched as all the abled-bodied passengers cleared out to get on a bus to London,” he explained. “I was just left and a woman sat near me thankfully got hold of someone.

“So I went to collect my chair but it was in a state, the leg braces and the seat were all bent, and the electric controller was smashed meaning it can’t work at all.”

Unable to borrow a wheelchair, Olly, a former engineer, managed to ‘half-fix’ his so it was usable but says it was still a struggle to use it on his own with his luggage.

‘Stranded’ in hotel

Norwegian Airlines then put him up in a hotel for the night and promised to be in touch to arrange his travel home the next day. However, he says he was ‘forgot about’ and left fearing he’d miss out on Christmas at home with his family.

“I was in the hotel for four days, having to pay for the accommodation and food out of my own pocket,” he said. “I couldn’t get through to anyone and my father spent £120 on international phone calls to the airline trying to get me help.”

Eventually, the airline told Olly it had arranged for a flight back to Liverpool – 90 minutes from his house – and a disability-friendly shuttle to collect him on December 23.

But Olly says the mini-bus never arrived. “I got up in the early hours and waited and nothing,” he said. “The hotel helped me arrange to get there by public transport but it was too late, I’d missed the flight.”

Airlines letting disabled people down

He then had to pay for a flight to Heathrow. He then says he was unable to use the Heathrow Express, an airport rail link between the airport and Paddington, because staff said he was struggling on his own with his broken wheelchair and luggage.

And so Olly waited for his father to drive for four hours from Wales to collect him, and he arrived home Christmas Eve, exhausted.

“I had a relapse for seven days straight after which kind of ruined Christmas for us,” he said. “I feel it was brought on my the whole experience which had been physically and mentally draining.

“I’ve started to do short YouTube videos to show other disabled people how it works when you travel, who you need to ask for help from at an airport, how they get you on the plane, for example.

If mistakes aren’t acknowledged then things will never get better for disabled people Olly Vaughan Jones

“If one person even just gets on a train to the coast because of it I’ll be happy.

“But sadly what happened to me shows that airlines and airports are still lagging behind. There are protocols in place but they tend to fall apart if there’s some problem or issue. They don’t have back up plans in place.”

Olly said Norwegian Airlines have reimbursed him for his flight and full hotel costs, but are willing to pay only half of the £2,400 wheelchair repair costs.

“I need my wheelchair in full working order, since I got an electric one it’s literally transformed my life and I can’t do without it,” he said.

“But as well as the costs, I want the airline to apologise and hold their hands up and say ‘we didn’t do enough here’. If mistakes aren’t acknowledged then things will never get better for disabled people.

“A carer costs about £9 an hour so that makes going on holiday with a carer unaffordable for most disabled people. We should be allowed our independence.”

A Norwegian Airlines spokesperson said: “We sincerely apologise to Mr Jones for his journey was diverted following the closure of Gatwick Airport due to suspected drone activity.

“We arranged hotel accommodation and rebooked his flights four times due to the customer missing his flights following miscommunication and wheelchair issues. As a leading European carrier, we always follow EU Regulation 261/2004 regarding delays where applicable and cover the expenses our passengers incur in circumstances such as these.

“Mr Jones was refunded his expenses and we are currently in contact with him to issue a maximum £1,218 for the customer’s wheelchair damage, in line with the Montreal Convention. We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

Charles de Gaulle Airport has been approached for comment.

To visit Olly’s YouTube channel, visit here.