United Airlines Allegedly Neglected to Help Injured Father of Missing Children

Traveling can be a stressful experience for everybody. Flight delays, running through terminals, and catching reservations on time will make anybody weary. For some, it gets even worse. Louis Zaharias, who has a tragic history regarding his missing children, thought that he was taking a standard trip via airplane earlier this year.  However, his travels ended a catastrophe with injuries from a transparent office shelf that United Airlines employee should have warned him about.

  Mr Zaharis was in the UA office after an issue of some of his items being lost.  These were gifts that he had received from a sickly aunt who he had just visited.

Being one of the top airlines in the US, the company has a ‘lost & found’ office in the airport that is supposed to be able to help customers with any issues that have arisen with luggage. Supposed to. When he returned to California, all he found was pain and disregard from a place he went for help.

What should have been a routine process of returning missing possessions, which the company had lost, purportedly turned into a nightmare scenario. After giving him the standard runaround of filling out forms and demands, Louis Zaharias was ready to stand after reviewing something in his luggage but  struck his head violently on a transparent plexiglass shelf upon rising .   It was protruding from the wall above his seating it is believed.

With the force of the blow was enough to knock him to the ground,  Zaharas received a traumatic brain injury; a concussion.  Also,  his attorney Nehora Law reports he also obtained injuries to his knees and spine. 

From the head-strike,  Zaharias laid on the floor in dismay.  He was helpless, directly in front of the airline employees – who allegedly, rather than fetching help or assisting him themselves, decided they would do nothing to aid the elder Californian.

When he was finally able to muster up enough energy to crawl on his hands and knees to get help himself, the physical exertion forced him to vomit and urinate his pants. The avoidable situation can be added to a list of cases and claims of United Airlines abusing customers (see: reddit) .    This situation becoming public however with the help of Nehora Law, may make a change.UA may have to review employee training and actions more thoroughly.  

In the end, Zaharis was thankful for other Californians and travelers who saw the events unfold.    Regular civilian citizens were able to get him some help and  proper attention to his situation. But an event like this is scarring for anyone, especially one of senior age.  It can also be reputation-scarring for a major company like United Air.   

Louis is no stranger to tragic events however.

A history of sad events

His name might sound familiar to some because he is the father of the Zaharias children, who were kidnapped in 1987 and haven’t been seen by their father since.

Christopher (age three at the time) and Lisa (15 months old) have likely lived their entire upbringing without being aware of what actually happened in their childhood or that their father has been searching for them for decades.

Their mother kidnapped the two from their California residence and fled across the country. While there were a couple of sightings, these tips never led to any concrete information that authorities could use to track them down.

This is an excellent reminder of why companies like United Airlines should always be treating customers with the utmost respect. You never know what struggles somebody may have gone through, and they don’t deserve the humiliation that he went through.

The United Airlines complaint file seems like it would be endless, and with stories like this coming out, only continuing to grow. With stories like David Dao, the man who was assaulted by security officers after the airline overbooked a flight in 2017, the bad publicity has not stopped. 

Louis Zaharais has lived a life with difficulties, and the last thing he needed was taking the supposed United Airlines abuse just to find some missing gifts. Hopefully the company will reach out to him and rectify the situation if it turns out to be true. Certainly that is the least they could do after their brutal handling of it initially.