A woman has shared an emotional video claiming she was refused service at a Dunkin’ because she is deaf.
As she sat in her car crying, TikToker Shannon Heroux (@shannon_heroux) tearfully explained how an employee and managed at the chain in California were refused to accommodate her needs one afternoon.
“I didn’t know how to process it, and I was, and I was confused. I couldn’t hear anything,” She said. “I couldn’t hear. I wear a cochlear implant, but I wasn’t wearing it at that time.”
Wiping a tear away, Shannon added: “I’ve never been refused service before. It hurts. It hurts really bad.”
To understand what the employee was saying, Shannon needed the Dunkin’ worker to take off their mask. She could see their lips to lipread and understand what they were saying.
Lip reading is one of the most preferred and only means of communication for deaf people.
But when Shannon explained this to the employee and said she couldn’t understand her but despite this, she claims the woman “didn’t take her mask off” and instead went to the manager.
“I could just tell by his [manager’s] body language, his face, he was going off,” The TikToker stated. Shannon claims that he refused to write anything down and take his mask off when he visited her.
“People don’t believe I’m deaf, and I could sense and feel from him [manager] that he couldn’t believe me. He didn’t believe I was deaf because I speak so well.”
She stated that she was wearing an eye mask, they were approximately six feet apart, and that there was plexiglass in the shop.
In the second part of her video, she explained how the pandemic has particularly affected deaf people and described how she was at her “breaking point.”
“No deaf person should have to go through this,” Shannon said. “I’ve been discriminated [against] this entire pandemic.”
The BBC, ACCORDING TO A RECENT REPORT, theorted more than one in three deaf people have reported struggling with their mental health because of the pandemic, according to the deafness charity SignHealth.
The pandemic has also resulted in cases of deaf people being discriminated against too.
Shannon now wants an apology from her manager for refusing to serve her.
“I want an apology,” She weeps. “What that manager did was wrong.”
Shannon’s emotional video has been viewed nearly 3m times between the two TikToks. She also received thousands of supportive comments.
indy100 has contacted Dunkin’ for comment.