Indigo Airlines — Harassment caused to senior citizen leading to being bedridden and complete health depletion

Address: 122 002

Website: www.goindigo.in

My Parents, (my father, Mr Raghu Gupta, 87 years old and mother, Mrs Mridula Gupta, 72 years old) were travelling from Kolkata to Mumbai via direct flight 6E 326 on Wednesday, 26th October 2016. Since they are both senior citizens, and my 87 year old father needs a wheel chair to commute on flights, we booked a direct flight on Indigo (which costs more money than a hopping flight), so that they could comfortably reach their destination within stipulated time.

Mid air on this direct flight, the crew announced that the flight would be routed through Udaipur as the Indigo flight from Udaipur to Mumbai had met with a technical snag so 6E 326 would be used to service the Udaipur passengers.

Hearing this announcement my father realised that the flight would take a couple of more hours than originally estimated to reach Mumbai. Being a patient of prostrate issues, he needed to use the airline rest room (which he would not otherwise have used, had the flight taken its natural course). This sudden change flustered him so after using the washroom when he came out he fell down, hurt his back and received severe injuries with serious bleeding.

• My parents were horrified to find out that the Flight 6E 326 had no first aid box. Infact there was no icepack/ice or any other basic, alternative means of cold compression needed as first aid requirement for the injury. (Photo of proof of my father bleeding in the aircraft attached).

• Hence the father’s bleeding wound remained unattended with only cotton dabbing and zero medication, (This cotton remained stuck to his raw wound which had to operated out in Ramkrishna Mission Hospital, Khar, the following day). (Photo of wounds attached).

• No First Aid Or Medication Was Provided till the next two hours and my father was medically attended to only when he arrived at Mumbai Airport. (Photo of prescription at airport attached).

• Kindly note that in addition to the above, my father experienced extreme agony for two full hours, in the absence of painkillers (since there was no First Aid box on flight).

This trauma and injury has caused him physical and mental agony and he is bedridden now, with compressions on his spinal chord that has left him immobile with no capacity of normal movements.

His wounds (which have got severely infected due to not receiving medical attention on time) pain him every day and the nurse is called to dress the wound daily. All this while he screams in agony when the wounds are tended to.

Before this incident, he was a man who visited his office regularly, carried on his business, was self sufficient and was active physically and mentally. He supported a family and working staff of eight members who are his dependents.
Today after this trauma and pain inflicted by the airline and because of its rather inconsiderate decision and further negligence, he is suffering from severe mental depression and is no longer in an active state of work and living.

From a healthy senior citizen he is now a bedridden patient (who has to even urinate and defecate on the bed) and who yells in agony and pain everyday and all night. Professional ward boys have been deputed for him, for 24 hours, (which is a regular drainage of Rs 2000 per day) with constant medical supervision and medical expenses mounting to huge expenses. Further, he has to be taken in an ambulance to the hospital every time for check up and treatment, since he cannot sit and we can’t put him into a four-wheeler.

Today, because of the above, our family has got reduced from being happy and healthy to being in constant worry and financially stressed. We watch him suffer everyday and are having an unnecessary drain of funds for no fault of ours.

It is a huge risk and an immensely irresponsible and illegal act that an airline, such as Indigo allows a flight to commence without the facility of the first aid box. This has caused irreversible loss for our family.

We request this complaint to be taken very seriously and on humanitarian grounds and be dealt with correct punishment for this irresponsible act of the airline and justice be served with necessary apology and due compensation.