I have arrived and I am VERY lucky to have made it here

So I arrived in Charlotte and was waiting for my next flight at 6:30 p.m for Gatwick, England.

I was talking to a gentleman for a couple of hours when he asked me when my flight was. I told him it was at 6:30 and he looked at his watch and said its 6:30, your flight has left. I told him it was 5:30 and if it had left it would have been obvious. As I was saying this I realized I was looking at my iPad watch which was showing me Austin time so I was one hour off. I immediately started panicking and packing up my iPad and camera etc that I had out to charge up and asked him to run over to the terminal (I had my cane and it would have taken me a couple of minutes) to see what was going on. I started packing up my stuff and he took off, I was done and started walking towards him and he ran back saying the flight has taken off but that he told them I was coming and they told him to tell me to get over there asap.

I walked over and a lady said "did you not hear us over the speaker system? we've been paging you for over 30 minutes continuously, we've boarded over a half hour ago and the plane has pulled away." I was in shock and didn't say anything when this guy walks up and said on his walkie talkie "We've found the disabled vet, bring the plane back and get his bags back on the plane." I still was not sure what was going on, had the plane really pulled out and they were bringing it back or where they just pissed off with me and they were about to pull out but had not but were saying this to get my attention.

So they wheeled me down the walkway and at the end of the walkway was an open whole where a plane should be attached and we sat there for about 10 mins while the plane came back from taxing on to the runway to take off to come back and get me.

Of course I was INSANELY embarrassed and dumbfounded I would make such a colossal mistake with such an important trip but thankfully they brought the plane back and I got on. What was cool was that when they came back for me and I got on board no one was upset and a lot of people were smiling at me. I got to my seat and told the ladies to either side of me that I was really sorry and embarrassed etc and they said no worries. I guess the pilot had told them I was an injured war veteran and thats why I was late to the flight and so everyone was cool and very courteous even during the rest of the flight :)

Heres some pictures from the flight.

Insanely small bathroom









Another very fortunate incident when I arrived. They picked me up in a cart and drove me. Because of this I literally bypassed around 700-800 people or more that had to go through customs b/c they had 5 flights arrive around the same time. As you can see the lines were insanely long.








We bypassed all of them, they didn't even check my stuff at customs, drove me up to where my bag comes in, that came up immediately and within 30 mins of exiting the plane I was getting out of the airport and on my way.


The light at the end of the tunnel.

Location:The Pavement,Lambeth,United Kingdom