- Jennie Berry was left shuffling up the stairs at Dalston Junction station
A disabled woman was forced to crawl up a flight of stairs at a train station because of an out of order lift.
Staff were seen giggling at wheelchair user Jennie Berry, who was left to shuffle up the steps on her bottom.
To add insult to injury, a technician announced that he had got the lift working just as Ms Berry reached the top step.
Station staff were heard joking to Ms Berry that she ‘could use the lift if she wanted’ – as she was finishing her 15-minute climb.
The frustrated passenger filmed herself struggling at Dalston Junction station in north east London after arriving late on Thursday night on an Overground train.
Ms Berry, 29, who was trying to reach her hotel outside the station on a visit to the capital, said she was most annoyed by the way she was treated by Transport for London (TfL) staff.
Assistance only appeared as she was three steps from the top of the stairs, where one man in an orange high-vis jacket could be heard telling the helpless passenger that the lift had been broken for a month, adding ‘Didn’t you know?’
After being informed that the elevator had been fixed, he was heard joking with a colleague: ‘She’ll be happy now.’
She said: ‘There was no signage from the station I’d left from to tell me the lift was out of order, and there was also no staff around on the platform to assist me in trying to get to another accessible station in the opposite direction and then try and get home from there.
‘So I crawled up this flight of stairs because my hotel was literally outside this station.
She added: ‘As a wheelchair user, I’m not the first person this has ever happened to and I certainly won’t be the last.
‘Things need to change for disabled travellers and quickly.’
Mark Evers, Chief Customer Officer at TfL, said: ‘We’re deeply sorry for the distressing experience that Jennie Berry had while travelling with us and we are urgently looking into this incident with Arriva Rail London, who operates the London Overground on our behalf, to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
‘We understand that lifts being out of service can have a significant impact on customers who rely on them, and we are committed to making transport in London more accessible.
‘We are also working harder to ensure that lifts are repaired quickly and that information about their availability is published promptly.
‘I regret that in this instance the necessary information wasn’t readily available.’
Share or comment on this article: Moment wheelchair user, 29, crawls up stairs at London Overground station on her bottom due to broken lifts – as staff are heard ‘laughing’ when she is told it is fixed just as she reaches the top
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