Cited: ABC News

tA dying child gets his wish to see the Toys “R” Us in Times Square, however, his wish was delayed. You ask how? Air Canada damages and 10-year-old boys customized power chair badly enough to need replacement. Tanner Bawn is immobile without his wheelchair and he spent almost a day stuck in his Manhattan hotel waiting for replacement. Bawn, of Vancouver, has muscular dystrophy and cannot get around without his electric wheelchair, according to a family friend, Scott Stratten. To make it even harder on the boy, doctors have given him about one and a half years to live.

So his friends and family are trying to fulfill a dozen or so of his wishes. One is being a cowboy for a day. Another is visiting New York where he wants to see the Toys R Us in Times Square and race through Central Park in a tutu with a supporter. That charity run called “Tutus for Tanner” was supposed to happen August 6 and aims to raise $25,000 via Twitter. In fact, a tag #TutusForTanner has been filled with posts all day about the wheelchair saga.

Bawn’s saga started the afternoon of August 4 when he and his aunt, Catherine Connors, boarded an Air Canada plane in Toronto heading to New York’s LaGuardia airport.

After making it to his seat, the custom wheelchair was taken to the cargo hold.

“One of the baggage handlers decided to try and take it apart,” Stratten said. “This isn’t like a manual wheelchair. This is a huge thing.”

When Bawn and Connor arrived in New York, Stratten said, “They found the wheelchair in a heap of pieces.”

“They pretty much wrecked his $15,000 custom chair so he couldn’t go anywhere,” said Stratten, who helped raise funds for the trip. “I’ve got a kid here who can’t move.” Air Canada originally said it couldn’t do anything about the chair until Monday, August 9. Bawn is supposed to head home Sunday, August 8.

There followed a firestorm of criticism on Twitter against Air Canada on top of media coverage that got Tanner another dying wish — to be on TV. It also got him his complicated wheelchair fixed in less than a day.

“Tanner is smiling,” Stratten reported around 2:30 Thursday, August 5, afternoon, minutes after the fixed chair was delivered to the hotel room.

Luckily, after a 23-hour delay, Bawn has his chair back and can start exploring the city.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the airline tried to get a replacement chair while it rushed off and paid to get a New York company to repair the broken one.

“We’re sorry this happened. We always try to deliver baggage safely but sometimes accidents do occur and it’s particularly upsetting when it involves a mobility aid,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a terrible situation and all we can do is try and fix it as best we can, as quickly as possible.”

The airline covered all the costs associated with fixing the chair.

Stratten said the family was initially upset with how the airline handled the situation, giving conflicting reports about what happened and when the chair would be fixed.

She acknowledged the Twitter rage in a note Thursday, August 5, afternoon thanking everybody.

“Air Canada is stepping up, making things right,” Connors said. “And you guys have everything to do with it.”

It may have helped Stratton is a Twitter pro with more than 60,000 followers. It may also been helpful that “Aunt Catherine” also has 8000 Twitter followers as well as her own blog. In fact, that is the other reason she came to New York with her nephew, for the annual BlogHer conference, August 6-8, an event that has 2400 female bloggers.

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My Take: I completely sympathize with this young boy! I am disabled and use a power chair. I can imagine what he went through waiting on his new or repaired chair. Air Canada is really going to have to improve their image with lots of promotional products. I bet if they had survey software, it would prove their image has fallen a great deal.

I can just see what happened when they brought the boy is chair, handing out imprinted pens trying to make them feel better and giving them advertising bags with Air Canada logos all over it. Doing anything to improve their image, which is now tarnished. I hope they set up online survey software so that I can partake in it. They would not like I’d have to say!

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