On the train coming back from Durham to London last week, I sat near the disable seats area. There was a girl sitting in her wheelchair opposite me. She supposed to get off at York but couldn’t, simply because there was no one station staff helping her when the train arrived. When the train was about to arrive at York station, I helped her to push her wheelchair to the door, then we were waiting for staffs to place a board for her to get off the train. But disappointingly, no one turn up even after the door closed and the train started to move again. She was panicking, because her boyfriend was waiting for her outside York station. I pressed the disable alarm a few times, but still, nobody came to help. At the end, I had to go to the buffet counter and ask the lady to call the train guide to come over for assistance.
He asked the girl if she booked a staff to help her get off the train. She was surprised by that question, because she didn’t need to for the last few years when she travelled from Darlington to York. “Every time the staff that helped me get on the train will report to destination station to allocate an assistance staff to help me”, she said. At the end, the guide apologized for the trouble that cause to her, and promised he will arrange a staff to come and help at the next station (Doncaster) and return her back to York on the next train. She didn’t have much choices but agreed to it. However just when the announcement came out about approaching Doncaster, and the train started to slow down, no staff came to the disable seat area. I was waiting with the girl, she looked worried. I was waiting until I saw the station through the window but still staff turned up to help, I rushed to the buffet counter again and asked the staff for assistance.
The trained arrived, and we were waiting by the door inside the train for assistance staff to bring a board for the girl’s wheelchair to move out the train. I can clearly remembered that it took about 3 minutes for the assistance staff to show up after the last passenger from Doncaster got on the train, which means that there weren’t any preparation nor notification for this assistance to come. He only got told when the train arrived. If I didn’t ask the buffet lady to come and help, the girl would have missed the train again.
I was quite angry about the situation. I was happy to help but I’m not the one supposed to help, it should be the job of train staff. At the same time I felt sorry for the girl, and I asked her to write a complaint letter to the train company about this inconveniences that caused to her.
On the rest of the journey, I thought a lot about what just happened. One question came up to my mind was that what if this happened in China? Will there even be a staff to help her get on the train? If this girl is in China, will she even think of writing a letter to complain? Or assisting disable people is not a service to be expected in the society? I just read a post in Dimsum, and I think there are a lot of aspects needed to be improved to increase the awareness and care for disable people. After all, no one wants to be disable, they should enjoy the same rights as normal people.