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  • 3 years ago
Derek Draper trapped in disabled passport scanner at Heathrow 'for an hour'

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00:00 happens every day. And you found this as well with Derek, haven't you? I found this as well,
00:03 very briefly, because we're much more into your story of travelling back from the US
00:07 after some treatment in the US. Heathrow was celebrating that they'd put in a new wheelchair
00:14 width thing. You know when you go through and you put your passport scanner up, and
00:19 before that you couldn't get a wheelchair through? They'd put one in at vast expense.
00:24 They came to do it with Derek, who has a disability, has a wide range, doesn't it, and he hasn't
00:29 got the cognition you've got or the strength that you've got in your upper body. We realised
00:34 we couldn't get him into the country because he went forward, the door locked, but the
00:40 disabled person has to free it and you're not allowed, because of the border, to do
00:43 it yourself. So he was stuck in no-man's-land, literally, between two borders for about an
00:50 hour or so. And so that's even when conscious effort has been made to make things work.
00:58 And I wonder if it's because there aren't enough disabled people talking to the right
01:02 people.
01:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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