Lori Gabriel was seated on a United Airlines flight with her four-year-old her son, Braysen. The little boy who usually loves to fly, began to have what Lori described as “a meltdown.”
The flight was about to take off from San Diego when Braysen, who suffers from autism, slipped out of his seat and wanted to sit in the aisle.
“We were trying to get him back into his chair and get his seatbelt back on, and that’s when he had his meltdown and started kicking, screaming and hitting,” said Gabriel in an interview with Fox News.
A flight attendant told her that the flight couldn’t take off until Braysen was seated. Concerned that they were going to get kicked off the flight Gabriel apologised and explained that Braysen was autistic.
The flight attendant allowed Gabriel to hold Braysen on her lap for takeoff.
Gabriel told Fox News that after the seatbelt sign had been turned off, “I just couldn’t hold him anymore because he was fighting me the entire time and that’s when he sat on the floor.”
She was impressed with the treatment she and her son received from United Airlines. Braysen made his way up to the first-class section and was “messing” with a man’s seat and was not told off by anyone on board.
After touchdown in Houston, she posted on Facebook saying: “To the man in first-class seat 6C you rock thanks for playing with Braysen and not minding him kicking your seat or messing with you! He loved your high fives!”
She also thanked a lady (an off-duty United flight attendant who was seated nearby) for an encouraging note she wrote and for not being bothered when Braysen began kicking her feet as he was on the ground.
Gabriel wrote on Facebook: “Huge thank you to United Airlines they accommodated his needs, made sure we were all OK, worked around where he choose to sit.”
Image cerdit: Lori Gabriel/Facebook
