(The following article by Derek Harper appeared on the Press of Atlantic City’s website on May 30.)
HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Diane Flash’s eyes lit up as she quickly scanned the letter.
“Uh-huh!” she said, enthusiastically.
“Can I see it?” asked Erin Hall, her daughter.
“Very nice,” Flash said, and handed it off to Hall, who laughed excitedly as she read the good news.
“Well, now you don’t have to picket the station, right?” Flash said, as her daughter finished reading.
The letter, dated May 28, told the two that Amtrak would pick up the entire tab for Erin’s $2,500 sports wheelchair that fell off a train last February.
In February, the family took a trip from Philadelphia to Birmingham, Ala., to compete in a wheelchair basketball tournament. Erin, 13, was born with spina bifida and is paralyzed from the waist down. But she is also an active athlete who swims, golfs, rides horses and enjoys fishing, in addition to playing basketball.
As their trip began, they watched Amtrak load the low-slung device into a cargo car in Philadelphia. But in Birmingham, no chair was found. Alabama train workers blamed Philadelphia.
When the family finally got back to Mays Landing, Amtrak officials called and said they had found the chair – on a Virginia railroad bed. Damages included an axle broken.
Amtrak offered $500 compensation – a fifth the cost of replacing the chair. Outraged, Flash wrote and phoned Amtrak, her congressman, friends, disability groups – anyone she thought could help.
Until this week’s letter, dated the day a story about the situation appeared in The Press, Flash had been spinning her wheels.
Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel said that because the family didn’t buy additional insurance for their wheelchair, which was transported in storage, Amtrak was technically liable for only $500. But he said that after discussing the February incident, company officials decided to pay to replace the chair.
“Really, it was a matter of they were right and we were right,” he said.
The company has already sent the family a $500 check, which the family has not yet cashed. Now another $1,965 check is coming to cover the cost of a new $2,465 wheelchair from Eagle Sportschairs of Snellville, Ga.
The custom-fitted chairs take between three and four months for delivery, they said. If all goes according to plan, Erin Hall will be back in her chair by September, when the next basketball season begins.
“Goody! Now I can get my wheelchair!” she blurted out.
After the Press wrote about the struggle Wednesday, the family said they received calls from sympathetic friends and supporters. People wanted to know how they could help.
Five people also wrote or called the Press, similarly wanting to help their neighbor. One was Northfield resident Sean Hanlon, who also golfs and whose daughter is also named Erin.
“I was having dinner and saw it in the paper, and I – you know, it looked like something I could assist in,” he said. “To me, certainly it was an achievable, good, short-term cause.”
He said he wanted to help out, maybe by soliciting his golfing buddies.
“Sometimes the little guys can band together and help other little guys out,” he said.
Hall and Flash were grateful for the calls and the offers of help. But they were glad, they said, that it was Amtrak that paid for the mistake.
It was encouraging and good to know, they said. They fought, they won, and next fall, they’ll be back on the court.