Man Says Paralyzed Wife Ejected From Fair

Oct. 2, 2008 — -- Rose Harn can't speak. She can't walk. And the only way she can tell her husband she loves him is by sticking her tongue out at him.

But she was certainly capable of understanding an employee at the Western Idaho Fair who asked the couple to leave the Mothers Against Drunk Driving booth where they were volunteering in August because she was "too graphic" to look at, her husband, Mike Harn, told ABCNews.com.

Harn has required the use of a wheelchair since 1986, when a 16-year-old drunken driver ran a stop sign and smashed into the car she and her daughter were riding in. Harn suffered severe brain damage and was in a coma for more than a year.

The Harns have been regular fixtures at schools, victim impact panels and, for about the last 15 years, the MADD booth at the Western Idaho Fair in Boise.

Mike Harn said they had been at the fair Aug. 19 for less than a half hour when a woman from Spectra Productions, which is contracted to oversee the fair, approached his wife and her caretaker.

"She said, 'I want you to take that woman and I want you to leave the premises,'" Mike Harn said, "and she pointed right at her."

Mike Harn said he asked to speak to the woman's boss, but he never came to the booth. He called the local MADD chapter the next day to discuss the issue and he said he was told both he and his wife had been removed from its volunteer list.

Dispute Over What Was Said at Fair

The Harns, who lived in nearby Nampa, have since filed complaints with several agencies, among them the Idaho State Human Rights Commission, the American Civil Liberties Union and Spectra Productions.

"Rose was crying because she heard her say it," Mike Harn said, referring to the comments by the Spectra Productions employee.

Brad Miller, a lawyer whose Boise-based firm Hawley Troxell represents Spectra, said it was "not appropriate for us to comment on a pending matter."

"I think it's certainly safe to say there was a misunderstanding," he said.

Rich Wright, director of Ada County Public Information, said in a statement to ABCNews.com that the county fully supports the Human Rights Commission's investigation and noted that the person who the Harns said approached them was not a county employee.

The Western Idaho Fair is a department of Ada County.

Wright said that Spectra told the county that no employee working for its company had asked Harn to leave the fair, but that the Harns told the county otherwise.

"Ada County anxiously awaits the outcome of the HRC [Human Rights Commission's] review and we have said publicly, and will continue to say publicly, that Mike and Rose Harn are always welcome at any Ada County facility," Wright said in the statement.

James Fellakos, an ACLU disability rights fellow, said that, requiring the use of a wheelchair himself, he understands firsthand the comments and stares that come with a disability.

Fellakos said he was disgusted by MADD's alleged removal of Harn as a volunteer because the group exists to prevent accidents like the one she was in.

The entire incident in Idaho, he said, "sounds like the actions of misinformed, judgmental, small-minded people."