A British wheelchair user travelling to Brussels on the Eurostar ended up in Rotterdam after staff wouldn’t help him off the train.
Orlando Cardozo, 24, had arranged for assistance to disembark at the Belgian capital, but when the train arrived on Friday, no one was there to meet him.
Mr Cardozo says he went in search of a ticket collector to ask for help, but soon the train began to move again, carrying him on to the Netherlands.
‘They said someone would meet me at Brussels and get the ramp to get me off the train,’ Mr Cardozo told Daily Mail.
‘But when I arrived in Brussels, no one came to meet me.
‘And so I went down the train a little bit because the train was stopped at Brussels for five minutes or so, and I had time to go and find a ticket collector.
‘I asked him if he could get a ramp to get me off, and he said he couldn’t. He said he would talk to the train manager and arrange for me to get off.
‘But then the train started moving, so I had to go to Rotterdam.’
Mr Cardozo said he didn’t understand why the ticket collector couldn’t have fetched the ramp himself, but that ‘maybe he didn’t have the right training’.
Orlando Cardozo, 24, had arranged for assistance to get off at the Belgian capital but was told staff did not have a ramp and he would need to stay on board
Mr Cardozo (pictured) says he went in search of a ticket collector to ask for help, but soon the train began to move again, carrying him on to the Netherlands
He explained what had happened to the train manager and staff arranged for him to get a return train back to Brussels for free. The journey from Rotterdam to Brussels takes roughly an hour by train
He explained what had happened to the train manager and staff arranged for him to get a return train back to Brussels for free. The journey from Rotterdam to Brussels takes roughly an hour by train.
Mr Cardozo, who has Friedreich’s ataxia – a degenerative genetic condition that affects nerve transmission and causes muscle deterioration – began using a wheelchair at 16 as his condition worsened.
He spent half an hour in Rotterdam before leaving and fortunately made it to the wedding on time.
Despite the mishap he was able to look on the bright side, saying: ‘I didn’t really mind that much. I went to Rotterdam for free, which is kind of cool.’
He added that Eurostar are usually ‘amazing’ and said: ‘It wasn’t really anyone’s fault.
‘I mean, it sort of was because they forgot. But you can’t really be annoyed at someone for forgetting.’
Mr Cardozo said on Monday morning that he hadn’t yet been offered any compensation for the blunder but that Eurostar were ‘very nice about the whole thing.’
A Eurostar spokesperson said later: ‘We are very sorry to hear about what happened to our customer on his journey with us on Friday from London to Brussels. ‘
‘Ensuring our services are accessible is important to us, and we take incidents like this extremely seriously.
‘Unfortunately, the unavailability of a ramp at Brussels Midi Station was the result of a communication error between different stakeholders.
‘We sincerely regret that this meant our customers were unable to disembark at their intended destination (Brussels) and had to stay on the train until its next stop (Rotterdam).
‘Our customer care team has already been in contact with them directly and offered compensation. We are reviewing the incident to ensure measures are in place to prevent this from happening again.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .