A disabled woman was left stranded overnight at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after her flight was canceled and a porter abandoned her.
Olimpia Warsaw, who has Parkinson's disease and diabetes, was traveling from Detroit to Chicago for her ex-husband's funeral, reported WBBM-TV.
Her luggage was lost on the flight to Chicago, which caused her to miss part of the service, and she ran into trouble again on the return flight.
Warsaw's son, Claude Coltea, took her to the airport after his father's service last week, and he said a gate agent confirmed the flight was on time.
"She said, 'Yup, all's fine, we'll take good care of your mom,'" Coltea said.
But the flight was eventually canceled, and American Airlines assigned a porter to take Warsaw in her wheelchair back to the front entrance to the airport.
The airline offered Warsaw a hotel room, but she was responsible for arranging her own transportation there -- which she was unable to do because she has trouble communicating.
She asked the porter for help, but her family said he said his shift was over and left her at the airport.
"She actually had to find a random passenger to help her out just to go to the bathroom because the porters had already left for the night," said another son, Julian Coltea.
Family members called American Airlines after she failed to arrive in Detroit, and hours later security found Warsaw at the airport, sitting in her wheelchair and wearing her funeral clothes.
“All we wanted was someone to pause and say, ‘You know what, can we just make sure this human being is safe and then we can all go home,” Claude Coltea said. “Not one person did that.”
American Airlines apologized to the family after news reports aired, and the incident was being investigated.
