A woman using a wheelchair was stunned to discover that access to her car was blocked off by an inconsiderate truck driver at a local hospital and captured the incident in a viral TikTok video.
Harlie, a musician based out of Nashville, Tennessee, was once a keen runner until a degenerative cardiac condition that took 17 years for doctors to diagnose made it difficult for her to even walk, let alone run.
"I gave up on sports and started playing guitar just for something to do," Harlie told Newsweek. "Thankfully I had an awesome guidance counselor who encouraged me to pursue music."
Harlie moved out to Nashville a couple of years ago where she has been busy earning a living doing what she loves and adjusting to the new normal her condition brings. Part of that has included a wheelchair.
"About a year ago doctors encouraged me to begin using a wheelchair to take stress off my heart and joints as we work to stabilize my condition," she said.
Harlie isn't alone. According to the U.S. Department for Transportation (DOT), 5.5 million Americans use wheelchairs.
In 2022, the Urban Institute's Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults aged 18 to 64, found that four in 10 adults with disabilities reported experiencing unfair treatment in health care settings, the workplace, or when applying for public benefits.
Harlie's experience was a little different to that. A day earlier, she checked into the hospital after "experiencing some chest pain." By the time she was released the next morning at around 5:30 a.m. she was understandably exhausted. But when she went to get her car from the garage, she was shocked to discover a truck had parked illegally on the wheelchair runway between her car and another disabled parking space.
What followed was around 45 minutes of frustration as the already exhausted Harlie tried to work out how she would get home.
She called the hospital. They did not answer. She found a number for the garage and was told she would "have to wait around 30 minutes for someone to show up" to help. She then called the police's non-emergency line but was told it would "likely take even longer" for an officer to get there.
Once the attendant arrived, they regrettably informed Harlie the truck could not be towed. She called the police back to see if they could tow it. They could not. They did, however, agree to send someone out to write the truck driver a ticket.
"When the woman arrived, she was amazing," Harlie said. "Super empathetic to the situation, tried to make light of it, and offered to help however she could."
Ultimately, Harlie had little choice but to ask the officer issuing the ticket to help her get her wheelchair into the car. She then proceeded to carefully maneuver herself into the vehicle, doing so at some considerable difficulty.
"As of right now, I do still have some mobility in my legs, so after the officer helped me get my chair in the trunk, I was able to access my emergency cane and get to the driver's seat with her assistance," Harlie told Newsweek.
Harlie never met the truck driver and though the incident left her angry, she'd rather not pursue it any further. "This was an emergency room parking lot and we don't know what they were there for, so I am happy with the ticket being our closure," she said.
Experiencing difficulties like this when using a wheelchair has been eye-opening for the musician.
"Whether it's the elevator being broken at the mall, handicap stall doors being broken in bathrooms, or even opening the door to a coffee shop, things aren't easy," she said. "Being an ambulatory wheelchair user, it has been really frustrating because sometimes it is genuinely easier to use a cane and struggle to walk than to use my wheelchair."
With her condition "worsening" Harlie knows the use of the wheelchair will become "a more frequent necessity" in the years to come. She shared a video of her experience in the parking lot to TikTok under the handle @thisisharlie in the hope it might raise awareness of the challenges people in wheelchairs sometimes face.
The video, which was posted earlier this month, has so far received over 7.5 million views and over 860,000 likes.
"Since the video has gone viral, I've gotten multiple messages from people saying they themselves have parked in the ramp areas and will no longer do so after seeing the video, which means so much to me," she told Newsweek.
English (US) ·