Late last year, Codi Punnett bought four lower bowl tickets to this month’s Adele concert at Rogers Arena. Then in March, she went out for a walk, slipped and fell three metres onto a two-by-four, breaking her spinal cord.
“You just have no idea what it’s like to be down here in a chair all the time,” she told Global News.
Since the accident, Punnett has had to adjust to her new life, which includes a $7,000 wheelchair, a different car with hand controls and more than $100,000 in home renovations for the disabled.
Punnett and her husband Ian were looking forward to attending the Adele concert — a simple, hassle-free night means so much more now than it did four months ago.
But trying to exchange her old tickets for wheelchair accessible seating has proven to be a challenge.
“They basically said that sometimes they can accommodate people but this is such a popular show that it’s just probably not going to happen,” husband Ian said. “They put us on a wait list and said at that point that was the best they could do and then the day of the show they would call us.”
Global News contacted Adele’s management who got in touch with Rogers Arena and it appears a solution was found with the couple receiving tickets for the wheelchair-accessible section on the 300 level.
The couple is guaranteed seats in the upper deck but Rogers Arena also says it will try to move the couple to floor-level handicapped seating, if possible.
“Honestly, we just want to go see a concert,” she said.
– With files from Ted Chernecki