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Armless woman accuses Universal Orlando of discrimination

Posted at 5:43 PM, Sep 02, 2016
and last updated 2016-09-02 21:18:35-04

An armless woman accused Universal Orlando of discriminating against her disability. 

Cox was born without arms. However, she can fly a plane and has a black belt in taekwondo.

She said she grew up riding roller coasters at other theme parks and had no problem, but Universal Orlando was a different story. 

"Every single ride that moved has this broad blanket restriction that says that my situation being without both arms and hands, I could not be on any of those rides," said Cox.

When she got to the park she received a pamphlet with the riding policy for people with disabilities. 

The policy states that a rider has to "continuously grasp with at least one upper natural extremity."

This is something Jessica can't do. The park operators addressed her concerns. However, they wouldn't make any exceptions. 

"I just felt really upset and angry," she said. 

She explained she got really frustrated when they wouldn't allow her on the children rides that don't have seatbelts. 

"That was the moment where I was like okay... something is not right here," she said. "I have obviously spent a lot of my life proving those assumptions wrong about someone without arms can do and I think they should take into consideration the actual risk involved."

Jessica filed an administrative action against the state of Florida to bring awareness and change to what she called "blanket restrictions."

She hopes the park will address this issue and tailor their riding policy to certain people with disabilities.

The theme park refunded her ticket.

A Universal Orlando spokesperson said they do not comment or discuss litigation.