Handicapped access is a dangerous situation
(This letter is a response to "We just watched the smoke get worse and worse," which ran Monday.)
Please forgive me for the delay in writing this note, as I have never in my lifetime experienced so many emotions about an event with which I had no involvement.
I was not on campus on Nov. 1, and I do not rely on a wheelchair to get from one place to another. I don't know what it's like not to have the ability to save myself from disaster. I've never been in a situation with fire alarms sounding and 5000 people screaming around me while they evacuate from a burning building as I sit helpless. I'm not a journalist and thus cannot comprehend the reasoning behind burying a story of such magnitude on page five of The State Press (Nov. 5, 'We just watched the smoke get worse and worse'). As a parent, I don't know what it's like to be so much in fear for my child's life that I have to ask that they withdraw from the college putting their lives in danger.
Today I do know, however, how embarrassed I am by the knowledge that ASU does not make the welfare of handicapped students a priority. I would be interested (although I am sure, no doubt, sickened) to find out how many buildings on campus do not have emergency wheelchair evacuation capabilities nor comply with ADA standards for accessible design.
The State Press has released a story that the price of tuition has nearly doubled over the past six years at Arizona's public universities. I believe at least $400 million in donations have been received by this campus within the past five years, and yet we still have not retrofitted the pre-ADA buildings so they save lives and allow students who use wheelchairs to get from one class to another on time and without angst. I've heard the frustration from faculty and staff about out-of-service elevators that cannot deliver the students to class or to advisor meetings.
Seems slight in the scheme of things: "…four students had no choice but to wait in the burning building for help to arrive." "…it was like hell waiting down there."
Kudos to Emma Breysse for not only hibernating the story within Monday's edition, but also for her ability to downplay what could very well have become an incredibly serious tragedy.
And yes, thank you to the firefighters for their heroic deeds and certainly to the wonderful, able-bodied friends who remained with the wheelchair-users; I wish you all the very best. And to the students, faculty and staff at ASU, all the best that an ill-equipped public university can offer you (us) in the case of an emergency.
Kylie A. Syslo
