After having her wheelchair checked in for a flight, Sophie Morgan, star of Loose Women, was furious to discover it had been 'broken', leaving her with little choice but to sit in an aisle chair that was "not safe."
The 37-year-old presenter and disability activist claimed she "landed at Heathrow with a bang" after discovering her chair had been "broken."
Sophie shared a video of the damaged chair on Instagram, telling her 57,700 followers about her ordeal. In the video, which showed the damaged chair, she said: "Someone - no one took responsibility - decided to attach my wheelchair and my batec (battery-powered attachment) whilst in transit (they were checked in separately, in two parts, unattached) and they have done so a. without my permission and b. COMPLETELY WRONG.
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"It took over half an hour to 'break' them apart, all that time I had to sit on an aisle chair which was NOT safe and I didn't know if I would be able to get back into my chair."
Sophie said she was eventually able to get back into her chair after the batec was broken apart, but said it was not safe, adding she'd found further damage.
She continued: "And what was I told to do by British Airways? Send an email via the website.
"This has GOT TO STOP. Thousands of chairs are damaged every year by airlines. It's just #planewrong."
She was inundated with supportive messages from her followers, with one person replying: "This makes me so angry. As a physio we encourage our clients to go live life, travel but this just highlights why so many wheelchair users are afraid to travel. Showing such little respect for an individuals belongings is just unimaginable and unacceptable."
A second person said: "Honestly. Sorry this happened, Sophie. It’s just not ok." Another said: "This is getting ridiculous. I’m seriously starting to think it’s going to take the disabled owning airlines and other businesses before we get decent service."
When Sophie was involved in a car accident in 2003 that left her instantly paralysed from the chest down, she was only 18. The celebrity had a spinal injury that required three months of hospitalisation and rehabilitation, she now requires a wheelchair.
In response to a life-altering accident, Sophie described what it's like to "wake up with a different body" and how she sometimes feels as though she has lived two separate lives.
"Non-disabled and disabled are very different experiences," she began telling OK! magazine. "It does feel like two different lives. The person I became after my injury is very different to the person I was. I’ve grown up, obviously, as I was a kid, but those two realities, personalities, identities definitely feel very split."
Asked whether she would go back in time and warn herself not to get behind the wheel that day, the presenter pointed out the answer wasn't straightforward.
"Anyone who has had trauma in their lives that hasn’t killed them but has made them stronger can relate, I think," she said.
"You don’t know if you would go back and change the course of events, because if you did then you wouldn’t be where you are."
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