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A 72-year-old wheelchair-bound Bronx woman is suing the fire department for laughing and injuring her after she called them for help last March, the Post reports. The ex-husband of two-hundred pound Ziola Garcia called 911 after her "self-powered" wheelchair, which elevates 3½ feet to allow her to reach objects, got stuck in the "up" position. But it was all a big joke to the firemen who responded, she alleges: "They were laughing at me, making fun of me because I was trapped in the chair. I was insulted. I asked them, 'What's the show?'" Her shoulder was also injured during the rescue attempt.
Woman Suing FDNY for Laughing
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lol hilarious.
Can she really get away with suing the FDNY? What about just the individuals who laughed? I remember reading something somewhere in the constitution about this little thing called freedom of speech.
I'm surprised there's a wheelchair that will lift someone that heavy that high. Ya gotta love technology. Also, this woman's heart must be superpowered to be able to continue to work for someone that heavy at 72.
There's also a little thing called professionalism. And another thing called being polite. You might want to check out both of those.
what a waste of space that lady must be. 200 pounds and she needs a wheelchair that can elevate? what a d-bag.
If it is funny, you are going to laugh, even if it's at the expense of others. Yes I wasn't there, but it seemed as if it was a very humorous situation.
Fat people need to have a sense of humor about their weight. You want the firemen to save your oversized ass but to also keep a straight face in a funny situation? How about doing something you have control over, like losing weight.
i didn't know nelson got a job with the fdny.
Honestly, 200 pounds may not make her all that big. It didn't say how tall she was. Asking for an apology would be the right thing to do...suing for laughing is a bit much.
You're a bunch of assholes. (Most of you anyway.) Did you bother to read the article? All you do is laugh, "Oh, she's fat!" As Spleenhg wrote, 200 is not that big and besides, the article says she's partially paralyzed. I suspected she might have some kind of disability even without having to read the Post. What about all those thin older people who still need walkers or motorized scooters? So shut the hell up and learn how to read, you jerks.
The point isn't how much she weighed, the point is that she's 72 years old.
Suing for shoddy treatment is a bit excessive, but if you find yourself in a vulnerable position, professionalism should be expected when you call upon the FDNY for help.
Apparently, none of those firefighters who laughed has a mother. What sad vermin.
What the hell, NYC public services? Between the NYPD beating you up and the FDNY laughing at you and breaking your arm, I can't imagine why anyone ever calls 911.
Openly laughing at an old lady takes a special kind of jerk. Breaking her arm was unintentional, certainly -- but if you see the person you're dealing with as a joke rather than as a human being (as these firefighters seemed to), then you're not going to be as careful as you should be. Their unprofessionalism caused her physical harm...I can definitely understand the lawsuit. (Which is probably primarily about the broken shoulder rather than the laughing -- if they had just laughed at her and not fractured her shoulder, there'd likely be no case.)
And, yeah, 200 pounds is not really very heavy at all, particularly for someone disabled who can't exercise. Remember that she's wheelchair-bound, 72 years old, and fragile -- she's not exactly making it to aerobics class in that kind of condition.
They weren't laughing at her having a stroke. They were laughing at the situation of a fat person stuck because of their weight. Yes, 200 pounds for a woman is fat unless she is 6ft5.
Was it insensitive? Yes. Was it unprofessional? Yes. Was it grounds for a lawsuit? No.
FD???
Call for service on the chair next time.
uh, 9/11
It's that crackly voiced lawyer who is always
on TV looking for Bizness,no gun shots this time.
Way to draw more attention to herself.
this sounds even funnier than those "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials.
A fat lady who can't get herself down from her 3-1/2 foot elevated chair? I'm guessing the firemen didn't actually have the belly laugh the situation deserved, but maybe snickered a little.
I just hope that no one was hurt in a real emergency while they were responding to "fat lady stuck in high chair".
They weren't laughing at her having a stroke. They were laughing at the situation of a fat person stuck because of their weight. Yes, 200 pounds for a woman is fat unless she is 6ft5.
A fat lady who can't get herself down from her 3-1/2 foot elevated chair?
Again, you're a bunch of goddamn idiots. She wasn't stuck because of her weight. She couldn't get down because her left side was paralyzed by a stroke. A 100-pound woman with the same neural injury would have been just as helpless. What is it with Gothamist commenters nowadays? Does the mention of a woman's weight suddenly turn off their brains?
She's going to get at least a six-figure settlement out of this, but that's okay as long as you morons get your laughs, eh?
She needs to get a sense of humor. I saw a guy having a stroke the other day, and he actually found the energy to smile and shrug his shoulders and tell the emergency people "I feel terrible" when they arrived running. The firemen probably laughed from relief, when they realized it wasn't going to be something awful as usual. They could have apologized, though, once they got over it. And, uh, once they broke her arm.
She wasn't having a stroke, she already had the stroke, which was why she was wheelchair-ridden. And the severity of strokes can vary widely. Your example might have been a minor stroke. Other people with really serious strokes are unconscious. This woman has apparently permanently lost movement on her left side. The long time since has let her left side atrophy, which is why her bones were brittle and there was no muscle tone to resist the idiot firefighter who tried to muscle her off the chair, not to mention making it hard to exercise and lose weight as all the "fatty haters" around here say she should. Would you be able to laugh that off if it happened to you? I know a stroke victim. He was sharp as a tack before the stroke but now has a tough time getting a sentence out and can't even walk. It's no laughing matter. Oh, and he had a good sense of humor before the stroke, too.
It's no use, Spirit. Jerks will be jerks.