Disabled woman forced to crawl up stairs after London Overground lift fault

A disabled woman was left to crawl up the stairs of a London Overground station due to a lift fault.

Jennie Berry, a disability content creator who runs the blog called Wheelie Good Life arrived at Dalston Junction on Thursday (February 8) night to head back to her hotel only to find herself "stuck", with no prior warning the lift was out of service.

The 29-year-old was left to physically haul herself up the station steps as there was no staff around to help. Sharing a video of the incident in a post on Instagram, Berry explained: "I crawled up the stairs and staff appeared when I was 3 steps from the top. They informed me that the lift has been broken for a month & ‘didn’t you know?'".

She went on to describe the "climb" which took 15 minutes and the moment when she heard staff "laughing" about it. Berry said: "At the top of the 15 min climb, the lift technician decides to announce that he’s actually got the lift working. 

"The two staff members behind me think this is hilarious and you can hear them laughing on the video about it."

She added that staff had asked her, "Didn’t you know?" to which she explained: "I'm not from here and, surprisingly, I don’t keep a log of functioning lifts in London."

Adding: "As a disabled person, this is a common occurrence and I was lucky enough to be able to do this - but lots of people aren’t."

The video of the incident has been viewed 6.4 million times on Instagram, with over 150,000 likes and hundreds of comments from people sharing similar experiences as well as messages of support.

According to Transport for All, only 92 out of 272 London Underground stations have step-free access, however with around half of these there is no level boarding so a manual boarding ramp is required. With the campaign group finding that just one in 10 disabled people feel they can use light rail with "confidence and ease".

Whilst Alison Kerry, Head of Communications at Disability Equality Charity Scope told NationalWorld: "There are so many ways that our public transport system is failing disabled people from booked assistance not turning up to lifts being out of order. Time and time again, disabled people tell us they feel like an afterthought.  When things go badly, the impact is huge. It can lock disabled people out of society, making it harder to work, socialise or get to medical appointments.  

"A genuinely accessible public transport system – where transport operators are held to account - could make disabled people’s lives much easier. It's time for the government, transport operators and regulators to immediately step up and take responsibility. This has been going on too long.”

Mark Evers, Transport for London's Chief Customer Officer, said: "We’re deeply sorry for the distressing experience that Jennie Berry has while travelling with us and we are urgently looking into this incident with Arrival Rail London, who operates the London Overground on our behalf,  to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

“We understand that lifts being out of service can have a significant impact on customers who rely on them, and we are committed to making transport in London more accessible. We are also working harder to ensure that lifts are repaired quickly and that information about their availability is published promptly. I regret that in this instance the necessary information wasn’t readily available.”

Sarah McCann is NationalWorld’s Entertainment and Trends Writer, who specialises in stories around TV, Film and Health. If you liked this article you can follow Sarah on X (Twitter) here. You can also share your thoughts in the comment section below.