Abandoned by Edmonton's Disabled Transit Service

EDMONTON - George Oliver is furious over the treatment he claims his disabled wife, Lynne, had to recently endure while using the City's Disabled Transit Service. He says she was forced to get off at the wrong stop and left abandoned for hours.

"They're not taking the people's safety into consideration," said Lynne's husband. "It's heart breaking. These people are helpless, defenseless. They need help. They need someone to stand up for them."

After contracting spinal meningitis at an early age, Lynne has not been able to walk on her own, and instead, relies on DATS to get her around.

Last Tuesday morning, Lynne was using the service to take her to Milbourne Mall, where she needed to get blood work done. But instead, she was taken to Millwoods Town Centre, and when she tried to tell the driver that it wasn't her stop, she was allegedly forced off anyways.

The driver told Lynne she would have to call the DATS phone line to get another ride. When that ride still hadn't arrived two hours later, Lynne tearfully called her husband to pick her up. The couple later learned another bus came for her - almost four hours after she was initially dropped off. And because she was classified as a "no-show," Lynne received a black mark on her file.

"So they expected her to sit at that entrance, at the wrong mall, where they kicked her off the bus for over 3 and a half hours, like a dog, waiting to see if maybe they found a ride for her to come home," said Oliver.

Oliver says the head of DAT apologized for the situation, but for him, that simply isn't enough. "She (the head of DATS) had no answers on how she was going to prevent this from happening again, any answers on safety procedure changes, rule changes, training...she put a letter in the driver's file and that's pretty much going to be the end of it."

While no one from DATS was available for comment this weekend, Councillor Amarjeet Sohi, a former DATS driver for 12 years, is now looking into the matter to make sure history doesn't repeat itself.

"This shouldn't have happened," said Sohi. "A driver is not supposed to leave a passenger behind outside or inside if the passenger tells the driver this isn't where there supposed to go."

Oliver claims this is the third time his wife could have been hurt while taking DATS, and he hopes it's also the last. "How many times will people have to be put at risk before they change their procedures and policies?"

With files from Linda Nguyen.