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Wheelchair-Bound Girl Hasn’t Been Able To Leave Apartment Since Sandy


by on Mar 4th, 2013

Schania Burgess via CBS 2

A wheelchair-bound 8-year-old girl, Schania Burgess, has been virtually trapped in her apartment since Superstorm Sandy knocked out her building’s elevator, according to a report by CBS NY.

Burgess’s mother laments the situation.

“As you could see, she’s in a wheelchair. You have to take her down the steps if you want to go outside and since the storm, like I said, she has not been outside at all,” Scherry Barnett told CBS.

Her mother said the elevators in their high-rise building on Surf Avenue and 24th Street have been out of order for months, leaving Schania a virtual prisoner in their third-floor apartment.

Burgess has not been able to go to school as a result and said she misses her friends and art class the most.

Instead, she is being home-schooled by an instructor.

CBS attempted to question building management as to when the elevators would be fixed but received no response, and security asked them to leave the building.

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  • http://kibblesbits.wordpress.com/ Ann

    It is horrible that building management did nothing, but as a parent I would do everything I could to get my kid out at least on weekends. Friends, family, see if an ambulance service can send someone over, see if the city or someone could pick up the costs. The child is not getting a FAPE n the LRE…there is a federal case to be made that the school should pick up the cost to get her out of the building, actually. But I could not keep my child indoors. And if the kid is in a wheelchair, surely that child has medical appointments where professionals would be required to help her get to them, paid by Medicaid? This shouldn’t be happening and there is more than the building at fault for this. P.S. because I have a disabled child I am aware of the options and federal regulations out there.

  • arniethek

    This is an outrage. Is this girl’s mother continuing to pay rent given management’s failure to provide elevator service? Can’t the rent be placed in escrow until elevator service is restored?

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