Family's Entry to Department Store Blocked Because Son's Wheelchair Looked Like a ‘Toy'
By Jennifer O'Neill
After a security guard at Harrod’s stopped Shelly Wall and her family from entering the store with a wheelchair that her son Noah, who has spina bifida, uses, she tells Yahoo Parenting they fled the department store “crying.” (Noah and his sister Steph are shown here. Photo: Facebook/Shellybobbins).
To Shelly Wall, her son Noah’s wheelchair is a godsend, giving the partially paralyzed 3-year-old with spina bifida mobility. But to a security guard at Harrod’s, the small blue ZipZac wheelchair just looked like a play car. So the guard told the Wall family, visiting the famed London department store on June 22, that they would have to leave the “toy,” as she says the man called it, in the luggage department.
“The guard said, ‘How is that a wheelchair?’” Wall tells Yahoo Parenting, explaining that Noah’s grandmother was carrying the ZipZac wheelchair when they were confronted, while Noah was in a Silver Cross stroller. The family brought the wheelchair so that when they visited the Disney Café and the toy department, Noah could see everything and play around. “I’m sorry but the definition of a wheelchair is a chair with wheels,” fumes the 43-year-old. “Why do we have this problem?”Standing up to the guard, though, proved more aggravating than helpful. “We were all really, really upset,” she says. “Grandma had to leave the shop while I was having to explain that this is Noah’s wheelchair and he needs it because he is disabled. But what was the most upsetting is that my daughter got so angry.”....
Access the full story at Yahoo! Parenting.
https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/moms-entry-to-department-store-blocked-because-122432435457.html
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