- A wheelchair user said he had to drag himself up the stairs at a railway station in London.
- Chris Nicholson said the elevator at the train station was out of order and staff refused to help him up the stairs.
- Nicholson said he made his way up the stairs by "pushing off one arm" and holding his chair in the other.
A wheelchair user said he was "in agony and tears" when he had to drag himself up the stairs at a train station after staff refused to help him.
Chris Nicholson was at the Milton Keynes station in London when he found that he needed to cross the platform, he wrote on Instagram.
"I was stuck on a platform with no working lift, no disabled toilets and told to wait several hours whilst they found a train to come to my platform, whilst another one served able bodied customers on another platform I had no means of accessing," Nicholson said in a post.
Staff at the railway station said they couldn't help him up the stairs due to "health and safety policies," he said, adding that the incident unfolded amid 31°C (or 88°F) heat.
"They would be at risk if they helped me," Nicholson said on Instagram. "I decided to get up the stairs, how? By dragging my chair with one arm, pushing off one arm and collecting my legs each step of the way!"
Nicholson said a passerby helped him by grabbing his chair, and a railway staff member ultimately carried his bags.
"Thankfully a gentleman saw me struggling and grabbed my chair! And the assistant manager went against what their manager was saying and grabbed my bags," Nicholson wrote. "I was in agony and tears half way up and I'm really grateful for the help!"
Throughout the ordeal, Nicholson said the train company Avanti West Coast "didn't help."
A spokesperson for the company did not immediately return Insider's request for comment but told The Guardian that they have "been made aware of this incident and are sorry to hear about the customer's experience."
"We have since been in contact with the customer – who has arrived at their destination safely on Friday night," the company told The Guardian, noting that they are in contact with the London Northwestern Railway, which manages the Milton Keynes station.
"We are in 2022 access should be a given not a privilege. Things like this happen daily to people with different types of disabilities and until we change policies to support everyone collectively," Nicholson said on Instagram.