Paralyzed former Olympian: Hotel worker called me ‘cripple’

DALLAS – An Olympic gold medal swimmer who was paralyzed two years ago in an ATV accident says an employee at a Texas hotel referred to her as a “cripple.”

In an Instagram post geotagged at the Gaylord Texan Resort in the Dallas area Wednesday, six-time gold medallist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen writes that she was being brought back to her room by a hotel employee when another employee saw them and said, “What’s going on here? Escorting the cripples now?!”

She says she was “shaking” afterward and adds that “cripple” needs to be considered “as bad as other slurs.”

She later posted on Twitter that the resort’s general manager apologized. She followed that with the hashtag, “#Accepted.”

The hotel didn’t immediately return a request by The Associated Press for comment.