(The Press of Atlantic City posted the following article by Derek Harper on its website on May 28.)
HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Erin Hall is a girl on the go. Or she would be, if Amtrak would ever replace her wheelchair.
But Amtrak doesn’t want to, so she might miss the next wheelchair basketball season starting in September.
Hall, 13, has never let having to use a wheelchair get in the way of a busy and active life. She was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
She swims. She’s the goaltender for the Vineland Sled Stars, an ice hockey team that competes on metal sleds. And an appointment with her new golf pro is coming up.
“The doctors told me she’d never even sit up,” said her mom, Diane Flash. That was before Erin started riding horses, when she was 8 months old.
“I used to cry” when they put her up on the animal, Erin said. “But once they got me on the horse, they couldn’t get me off. I’d throw a fit,” she said.
And up until February, she played basketball for Katie’s Komets, a wheelchair basketball team that practices in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. She used a specialized wheelchair, designed light for maximum mobility and speed. Each one costs a couple of thousand dollars. Her mother made Erin borrow one the first year she played for the Komets. She wanted to make sure Erin would use it before they spent the money.
The Komets play serious basketball. The first time Diane Flash saw a game, she thought something was on fire. “You can smell the burning rubber from the wheels,” she said.
On Feb. 19, the team traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to compete in the national championship. Most of the team flew. Erin and her mother took Amtrak. They had heard a wheelchair got banged up on a flight last year.
At Philadelphia’s 30th Street station, they watched workers load the chair and their other luggage into the baggage car. They took their seats and rode for almost a full day, seemingly stopping at every town between Philadelphia and Birmingham.
They finally arrived.
But the chair didn’t.
Erin and Diane started to yell as they watched the crew prepare to leave Birmingham’s station. Where was the chair? It wasn’t on the platform; it wasn’t on the train. The workers didn’t know where the chair was. Maybe it was in Philadelphia.
Erin and Diane went to the tournament, where officials loaned her a new chair, but it didn’t fit. Her feet didn’t even reach the pedals. The wheels were stiff and awkward. The team finished seventh.
Still, the tournament at Birmingham’s Lakeshore Foundation was great. The facility even offered soccer, which intrigued Erin. “I have no idea how to do that,” she said excitedly.
Erin and her mother left several days later to come back north. Two days after they got back, Amtrak called. They had found the chair, on a Virginia railroad bed.
But when Erin and Diane made it back to Philadelphia, they found a broken and bent chair. Potential repairers said they might be able to fix the chair, but they wouldn’t guarantee it.
After going through the Amtrak bureaucracy, the family got a $500 check. That’s all the company is liable for, wrote Amtrak customer service manager Carolyn A. Gilmore in an April 11 letter.
Amtrak officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Erin and her mother have not cashed the check. A new chair costs five times that, they said, and they want the rest of the money.
They’ve written to disability groups. They’ve telephoned supporters. They’ve let their congressional representatives know.
Meanwhile, Erin, who underwent back surgery in late March, hopes that after her six-month recovery is complete she can retake the court.
But she needs a chair. The team is planning to picket Amtrak at 30th Street Station. It’s unfair, they said.
They know what they will do next February, Diane said, with a laugh. “Next time we’re going to take a plane.”