71 Year Old Deaf Passenger Has Arm Broken By Police During Austin Airport Layover

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71 Year Old Deaf Passenger Has Arm Broken By Police During Austin Airport Layover

by Gary Leff on March 24, 2023

A 71 year old deaf Florida woman was connecting in Austin enroute to Seattle. She was a nervous flyer traveling alone for the first time in her life. Her hearing aid wasn’t working well, and wound up spending 3 days in jail and having her arm broken by police after she was unable to hear instructions from a gate agent – and asked twice to get on an earlier flight.

On September 13, 2022, Karen McGee had a three hour connection and seating herself at her connecting gate. She didn’t hear a gate change announcement for her flight. Her departure time passed, and she didn’t see her flight boarding, so she asked the Alaska Airlines gate agent what had happened. She missed her flight, and got rebooked on a later flight that evening.

However she thought there was another plane at the same gate that would be headed to Seattle (while Alaska and Delta operate the route 5 times daily between them, Delta flights are at the other end of the terminal and this is unlikely) and she asked the agent if she could get on that flight instead of having to wait until evening.

• She was told no, but couldn’t properly hear the explanation.

• So she asked another Alaska agent. That agent called the police.



Credit: Austin Police Bodycam Footage

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