Blind Woman Removed From Plane

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.-- A West Plains woman says she was wrongly and rudely de-planed from a flight departing from Springfield.  Laurie Reeves Goss is still shocked she was removed by Allegiant.  She thought it was a misunderstanding about her disability, but an Allegiant report gives a completely different reason.

She was California bound for her daughter's birthday. "And see my grandchildren, which I hadn't got to see in two years it took me to save up for this trip," Laurie says. 

But Laurie can't actually "see" her grandchildren.   "They said, when people are talking to you, look toward their voice," Laurie says.  It's how she was trained after going blind. 

After asking her to stop using her cane, and after she nicely offered the window seat to a sighted person, she was deemed a threat to the other passengers.  They asked her if she had her cane, she said yes, and they walked her off the plane.

Staff says she had alcohol on her breath, and Goss says she had two drinks before boarding her flight.  A lot of people do that, especially people who don't like to fly.

I know I've mentioned on here before that my father was blind, but I try not to dwell on how some people treated him.  The assumptions people make, the rudeness that came from the cruel and the unthinking alike, it all became almost as much of a burden as the disability itself.  My father couldn't go anywhere without suffering fools by the dozens, and I'm sure this woman's experience is no different.

There may be more to this, but I'll remain sad and skeptical.