Girl with crohn's poops her pants when Old Navy refuses to let her use the bathroom
 

How mean of the manager. I feel sorry for that poor girl.

CHICAGO -- A Chicago-area teenager's trip to a well-known clothing store turned into a humiliating nightmare recently when, despite her medical condition, she was denied access to a bathroom.

HealthWatch reporter Nesita Kwan talked with 14-year-old Ally Bain following the incident and learned that the teen's summer days are much like those of other teenagers.

She plays with friends, she's a budding young painter who spends time on her artwork and, like most teens, she likes to shop. But, Ally also has Crohn's disease, a sometimes severe and painful inflammation of the intestine that is often accompanied by uncontrollable diarrhea.

"When I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go at that time," the teen told NBC5.

Due to her illness, Ally has a card that explains the situation, just in case she finds herself somewhere with no public restroom. Kwan said that she's only used the card once, at the Old Navy store in Norridge.

Her mother, Lisa Bain, told Kwan that the two of them had one of the worst experiences in their lives at the store.

"I told my mom I had to go to the bathroom, and she said 'OK,'" Ally recalled of their day at Old Navy.

The Bains say they waited 5 - 10 minutes for the manager to arrive and give them permission, but even with the card, the answer was "no."

"So, my mom was saying that I really do need to go, and I started crying because it gets really hard to hold it," Ally said.

"He just kept saying, 'I'm making a managerial decision and we don't have a public washroom,'" Lisa Bain said.

The two went back and forth, and "then it happened," Kwan said. The teen lost control and soiled herself in her most embarrassing moment, right in the store.

"When I couldn't hold it anymore, it was very humiliating. I felt like people knew that it happened," Ally said.

Her mother said she can't recall ever being so frustrated and angry.

"He didn't pay any attention to the fact that she was crying," Lisa Bain said of the store manager. "There was no compassion."

Furious, Lisa Bain bought her daughter a change of clothes, left the store and immediately began calling Old Navy officials.

the link to the full story..
http://www.nbc5.com/health/3663327/detail.html

How awful.

We have 3 Old Navy stores here, and thankfully each store has a public bathroom right next to the fitting rooms.

I hope Old Navy officials take care of this manager and school him on customer service skills. It wouldn't hurt to educate him on Crohn's either. :rolleyes:

In the manager's defense, if an area is designated as "Employees Only," the company's insurance does not cover anything that may happen to a non-employee in that area. With the amount of litigation that takes place today in our country, the manager can't risk breaking a company policy.

That's awful...I can see being picky about who you let use your bathrooms, but that's ridiculous.

There should be exceptions for medical emergencies.

I'll bet there will litigation of another kind due to this guys intransigence. When people have a physical condition, there should be exceptions.

On the other hand, it sounds like in the time they waited for and argued with the mananger, they could have easily gone to another store or found a public rest room.

In this sue-happy society, this is a lose-lose situation.

What I don't understand is:
1) If this girl & her mother knew that they were going to be out for any length of time, why didn't she wear a type of Depends? If I knew that there was a possibility of incontinence, I'd certainly wear them! Yes, it's hard for a teenager to be different, but she knows that she has Crohn's - the stores don't know whether to believe her or not.

2) Why in the world would her mother buy her clothing at Old Navy (assuming that there are other stores nearby)?

yay kathy ryg! that's one of my closest pledge sisters mom!

I don't know much about the disease but I have a friend who has it and she says that when it hits and she needs to go it is very very painful to move, even a few feet. I"m not saying looking for another place is out of the question but if it hurts as bad as I'm told, it's quite hard to move for fear of pain and/or a horrible accident.

I would have shit on the manager's shoes and let him deal with that managerial decision.

-Rudey

This is incredibly true. One of the lifeguards @ the YMCA I'm a member at has Crohn's disease and she has so many stories about painful and embarassing moments. Fortunately for her she has never had a problem on the job considering that the YMCA staffs several lifeguards @ a time.

I agree. I would have made sure it spattered him.

An interesting option that I hadn't considered!

Excellent choice my friend!

10 points

Poor little girl. I also know someone who had this condition. It was very painful, and when she had to go, she had to go.

My oldest daughter has Crohn's disease, which incidently is covered by the ADA, and when you gotta go, you gotta go. Moving around makes delay damned near impossible. And yes, it hurts like you wouldn't believe to delay.

A law suit is definitely in order, for violation of the ADA.

Actually. I would have used their bathroom. They would have had to physically restrain me from walking into the employee area and doing it.

I would have dealt with the police afterwards.

But I am not a 14 year old girl.

Someone should post the address of that store so we can all send hate post cards.

Post cards so that anyone can read them.

Figure the manager would throw away hate mail.

Hell, I'm all for it!

I hope they left her poopy pants in the middle of the floor or on the counter.

And I certainly wouldn't have paid for anything, I would have grabbed it and left and let them get the cops after me if need be.

Honey, you are obviously so much nicer than I am because Rudey's suggestion is the very first thing I thought of when I read the article! :D

FOR ONCE In the entire time i have been on GC i finally agree with Rudey.....dam the heat must be really getting to me. lol

I mean this was a girl with her mother, not just her teen aged friends, who explained fully she had a diease and a disability at that and i hope they make a lot of noise about this and i hope Old Navy will publically apoloigize and fire the bastard manager who has not one ounce of compassion

The story said that the incident happened a few months ago and the manager is still on the job. The store's address is easily found on the Old Navy Website. It's the one in Norridge... ;) :p

As a person with Crohn's, I have to say that I have never had someone deny me use of the restroom, even without the card from the CCFA (Chron's Colitis Foundation of America). I would be horrified if someone did deny me use. I can attest to the fact that it's very painful and you have to go NOW when you have to go. You do read a lot of these types of stories on Crohn's support newsgroups and bulletin boards. I do live in fear of that situation and I suppose I could wear Depends, but I don't know that even Depends could uhhhh... accomodate the Crohn's. If I know I'm going somewhere without an easily accessible restroom, I just don't eat that day, to avoid the risk. I also know, in every store I frequent, exactly where the restrooms are and the first thing I do when I walk into a new public place is locate them. I love WalMart because they have TWO .. one at the front of the store and one in the back. I don't go to Meijer's if I've eaten because they only have one in the front of the store. I'm surprised she could wait up to ten minutes...

I don't wish Crohn's on anybody, except that manager....

Dee

I was just thinking that! Give him Crohn's for a day or so and see if he pulls that crap (no pun intended) again.

I hate when people in managerial positions (that are likely making not much more than minimum wage) try to pull the "I'm so big and bad" card. This is Old Navy, for crying out loud!

Yes, very true. I've worked in several different retail establishments where bathrooms were for "Employees Only" for the very reason of insurance purposes. I use to have women come into the store and ask if there little 4-year-old could use the bathroom. After explaining that for insurance purposes we couldn't allow it, they would whine that the public bathrooms in the food court (which were right across from our store) were not clean enough for their little one. Give me a break.

But, I have to say that Old Navy is wrong in this situation. After showing the card which explained her disease, I believe that the manager made a very poor decision. I'm shocked that this manager is still working there. I'm guessing that now that the store has gone public this manager won't be there much longer.

I understand insurance policies... but I think the manager has a moral obligation as a human being to provide for someone in distress.

Even if it cost me an insurance payout and a rise in my premiums, I couldn't stand by and passively cause harm to someone. Sometimes human decency just has to trump money.

I have had Colitis for over 13 years and when You are having a falir up you are having a flair up!. The day after I got married I went into the hospital for 30 days with food because of the illness. Its the worst pain you'll ever feel. Thank God Colitis is treated by medicine, but there isn't a cure for Chron's or Colitis, its something you learn to live with.

Rudey has over 7,000 posts, surely we could find a few more you agree with lol? Or do you disregard the message when you dislike the messenger?

Thats a fairly limiting trait.

Okay, as a person with Crohn's I'm gonna get pissy here and defend this girl til I'm blue in the face. You have NO IDEA what it is like to have this disease and a comment like that just infuriates me. Saying to wear Depends is like telling a person with severe clinical depression to smile. The types of bowel movements associated with Crohn's (especially severely acute Crohn's) really make Depends useless. As for her shopping at Old Navy, we try to live as normal lives as possible, and normally getting to use a private restroom isn't a problem. You show the card, they let you go. What that manager did is simply wrong and he should pay for what he did to that poor girl. I want to strangle him for his actions (or lack thereof). If only every person could have Crohn's for a single day... y'all would see just how hard it can be to live with something so awful. But, that's just how I see it.

ETA: Just thought I'd throw in my own little stories here... first one is how I found out Depends are useless- midnight in december, depends, ambulance ride from the urgent care center to the ER, hot EMT, bowel movement so painful I couldn't hold it. Yeah, that was mortifying. Second one- I almost had an accident the day I was being fitted for the first time into my wedding gown. That would have really sucked. I have never run that fast in heels in my life.

Interesting...I would love to hear how it turns out. I think that if Old Navy fired a manager for upholding a policy, they would be opening up to all sorts of ish.

The full article describes the outcome too. Old Navy has changed their policy to indicate that if it's an emergency, a restroom must be made available. The manager is still working there. An Illinois state senator is sponsoring a bill making ir illegal to refuse bathroom use in an emergency situation.

It seems to me that it would only be common sense. What if someone was suddenly overwhelmingly nauseous in a store? Wouldn't you, as a manager, rather have them be sick in your toilet and not on the floor of your store? Pregnant women in early phases can become sick suddenly too. This isn't just a Crohn's issue.

Dee

Excellent point, Dee. What the manager did just violates common sense, let alone human decency.

And I'm just not buying the liability issues and policy decisions. If the majority of places I visit have public restrooms available, why the heck can't Old Navy?

Its just the fact she told them along with her mother about chorns and i think it said presented the card...i dont recall....the manager should of allowed her to go the bathroom instead of right there.....


more of a liability there than the bathroom i would think.

she should have gone into the dressing room and done it there. That way maybe she could have not been quite so embarrassed. Poor thing I feel sooooo bad for her. What an asshole that manager is. What if she said "I'm gonna throw up"? We ALL know you can't hold that back long.

????

Kind of off topic, but our mayor was just diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. He apparently has a mild form, but because of his having it there have been a few stories in the paper describing the disease.

I think a problem is that many people just don't understand what the disease is - hopefully his battle with it will educate some people around here.

I have a student in my class with this disease, and when he's gotta go, he's gotta go...that's just the way of it. What an a-hole that manager is.

I think that the manager at Old Navy didn't understand Crohn's Disease. I didn't know about it until a few years ago. I think/hope that if he understood exactly what could happen, he would have allowed her to use the bathroom. It's common sense. You don't want a shopper to have an accident in your store. It's a good thing that Old Navy has changed their bathroom policy.

I sure as hell wouldn't have bought my kid stuff from Old Navy after that happened!

I hope the manager gets canned for this

I would think that if someone has an official card saying they need to go when they need to go, that should be enough, whether you know what the disease is or not.