Back in the day when I worked retail, the lesson was this. The customer always comes first, and the customer is almost always right (whether they really are or not). When did that morph into "screw the customer, it's all about my convenience and comfort" or "screw the customer, it's all about the bottom line and my big bonus"?
There are always other ways to get a crew to an airport that don't require screwing over a paying customer or even better yet, having a paying customer assaulted and put in the hospital. If memory serves, you can drive from Chicago to Louisville in less than five hours. The airline could have hired a limo, or just had the crew take a rental car. They could have put them on a different airline flying that way. I'm sure they could have done several other things if they had the mindset to do anything possible before screwing over paying passengers.
The entire "hooray for me and to hell with the rest of you" attitude I see everywhere these days ticks me off to no end. I'm just thankful I'm retired and don't have to put up with this sort of thing at work or anywhere else for that matter. These days I only have to answer to one person, and that's the lady I've been with for the last fifty years. Everyone else can kiss my azz.
Jerry