'This is my life, my legs': After a woman's wheelchair was damaged on a Delta flight, 'heartbreaking' video goes viral
Gabrielle deFiebre and Bri Scalesse boarded a Delta Air Lines flight to Phoenix from New York on May 21 in anticipation of a relaxed girls trip.
They both placed instructions and notes for the airport staff who would be transporting their wheelchairs. Scalesse said for any wheelchair user, this is the worst part of traveling – placing "an extension of your body" into a stranger's hands.
While getting off and on the plane, deFiebre sits in a small airport-provided chair, known as an aisle chair. Once she was placed off the aisle chair and into her own wheelchair, she immediately felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. The chair's backrest was folded down and the wheel was "completely destroyed;" she said the wheel was bent in a way that it couldn't propel forward.