About 2 months ago, a flight I expected would be more pleasant than usual turned out to be a real flight from hell.
Before my flight, I used my miles to upgrade to first class on an AA flight. I thought this would make my flight much more comfortable than usual… I was wrong.
Next to me was sitting a woman who was 86 years old. I know this because I heard her talking to someone else. Her family was seated back in coach. Soon after take-off, the 86 year old lady sneezes and covered her entire face with snot. I mean her ENTIRE face. Given that I was still in a great mood, I happily took out tissues I had in my purse and offered all of them to her. I should have known this was an omen of a bodily fluid nightmare…
Half an hour later, I was brought my meal. As I was about to begin eating, my seatmate suddenly and explosively vomited. The flight attendant rushes to her aid and was able to fill 3 bags with her vomit! At that point, I was not able to continue eating the hummus dip I had been brought. You can imagine why.
Another half an hour later, as I am stepping around her to use the restroom, she vomits again in the same explosive manner. This time, some of her vomit actually got on my clothes! After cleaning myself out in the restroom, I come back to my seat to find a lot of people around her. Because she is so old, vomiting continuously poses a real health risk. Because of this crowd, I was asked to simply stand and wait. The problem, of course, was that we were experiencing turbulence and I felt unsteady and wanted to buckle up. The turbulence lasted another 40 minutes, and during that time I just stood and the sick lady vomited yet again. That whole area smelled terrible. For some reason that I still don’t know, her family members would give me rather harsh looks. I didn’t at ANY point say or make a face of any kind! In fact, I was more than helpful the whole time.
To top it off, because I couldn’t just stand while the plane landed, I was demoted to coach. There went my upgrade. They gave my seat to the old lady’s niece. I asked if I could get my miles back and very swiftly they said “NO.”
So, to finish this crazy story, I can only tell you that about two days later I woke up extremely nauseous… I wonder where I caught that stomach virus!!!!!
Tagged as:
american airlines,
illness & medical,
odor,
senior citizen,
vomit
My fiancee (now wife) and I were just about to land in Amsterdam (red-eye from Detroit, Airbus A330, seats A & B, ultimately going to Scotland for her sister’s wedding) when the passenger in seat C started shaking. A friend of theirs from another row came to their side after the actual landing, but a language barrier kept the flight attendants from figuring out what was going on. Someone — I can’t remember who — thought this poor man just blacked out, but my wife, a licensed EMT, was sure he had just had a seizure. Thankfully for him, it was over quick and yes, he had blacked out since.
At the gate, a medical team came quickly in an ambulance. This being our first overseas trip, and us being tourists in every sense, what did we do? We took a picture of it! (We didn’t take pictures inside — the poor travelers deserved privacy.)
Soon enough, he was on a stretcher and out of there and we were deplaned, but boy did we have a story when we finally got to Scotland!
(The funniest thing is that, before that, we had only traveled out of the Detroit metro area twice together, but many, many times since, and almost every time there seems to be an ambulance in or passing by our immediate vicinity. Like when our honeymoon cruise docked in Cozumel — there was an ambulance on the pier! It’s our little game to spot the paramedics every time we travel. We are usually not disappointed.)
Tagged as:
illness & medical
Some years ago I was on an overnight TWA flight from New York to London. We took off around 11:00 P.M. with me seated on the aisle. Shortly after takeoff the woman seated next to me at the window needed a trip to the restroom, requiring me to get up and stand aside in the aisle. After several such bathroom visits, which took place regularly every 20 to 30 minutes, she explained she had a bladder problem.
I offered to switch seats, putting her on the aisle and allowing me some much needed sleep. She refused, declaring she must sit next to the window since she suffered from claustrophobia. It was night over the Atlantic; there was nothing to see out the window but pitch blackness. I asked several times without success and suffered through the night with little sleep, continually disturbed by her unrelenting bathroom visits. No other seats were available and I was stuck.
Tagged as:
lavatory,
TWA
It was April 16, 2007–Marathon Monday in Boston–and a very bad storm had blown into town. Unfortunately that was also the day we were flying with our children and my husband’s parents to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday at Colonial Williamsburg. Our flight to Newport News, Va was one of the few to get out on time that day.
Less than 20 minutes after takeoff, we began to experience the most horrific turbulence I have ever encountered. The seatbelt sign was lit for the entire flight, and within half an hour, people all over the plane began throwing up. It was like being on the Mayflower.
When the teenage boy in the seat in front of mine began throwing up, I reached into my seat pocket for a barf bag, but found none. Pretty soon, passengers in numerous rows were discovering that planes just don’t stock as many of these helpful little sacks.
The reek was nearly unbearable. As we approached Newport News, we were told that we wouldn’t be able to land right away due to the high wind velocity. So we circled… circled for an hour, people barfing all the while, until we were told that the plane had been redirected to Richmond where we would board motor coaches for the drive to Newport News.
My daughter and I were sitting near the front of the plane–and fortunately, no one in my family got sick–but my in-laws, who were near the back, said that as they were getting off, they saw a pool of vomit in almost every row.
I felt very sorry for the poor cleaning crew!
- Isolda
Tagged as:
vomit,
weather
