Coronavirus restrictions were blamed for why Kelsey Trevett couldn't be shown to his connecting train
A blind teenager was forced to feel his way around a West London Tube station at rush hour after TfL refused to help him.
Kelsey Trevett, 18, ended up having to video call his dad who then guided him around Harrow-on-the-Hill station and onto his connecting train to his home in Watford.
He is completely blind so usually needs station staff to help him get around.
But when he boarded a train at Northwood station and called ahead to the Harrow station to ask for help, as he usually does, staff there said they wouldn't be able to help him due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Kelsey told My London: "I asked them to meet me at a comfortable social distance and verbally guide me to my connecting train.
"If they won't they have a blind person feeling their way around the station.
"I’d never put myself forward for that. I would need help. I wouldn’t be able to find my platform or even see which one I needed."
Staff at Harrow-on-the-Hill suggested getting a taxi from Northwood to Harrow instead but Kelsey would have still needed help getting to the platform.
He had to think outside the box and video-called his dad.
Kelsey continued: "Thankfully Harrow is above ground. If it was underground I wouldn’t have been able to speak to my dad.
"He didn’t know the station either but I was just trying to point the camera in a direction that was helpful - at a passenger, or a board."
Kelsey eventually got home but it's changed the way he feels about travelling on the Tube.
He said: "Now I have to plan for these things to happen. I need to plan routes that avoid TfL services because all other train companies are providing assistance as normal. It’s just TfL that are doing it differently.
"Next time I’m making a similar journey I’m going to be thinking, 'am I going to have to figure this out again? Are they going to bother helping?'
"Stumbling around a station in rush hour not being able to see is not an experience I’d wish on anyone."
Brian Woodhead, London Underground’s director of customer service, apologised for what happened.
He said: "We are very sorry Mr Trevett was not offered the assistance he required and are looking into what happened in this case.
"Clearly something went wrong here as Mr Trevett should have been verbally guided around the station as requested.
"We will be contacting Mr Trevett to apologise to him directly and will make sure assistance is offered to any of our customers that need it."