United Airlines’ week from hell has been topped off with reports of a passenger being attacked by a scorpion.
Richard Bell was flying from Houston to Calgary on Sunday when the venomous creature fell from an overhead luggage compartment into his hair as he was eating lunch.
His wife, Linda, said: “My husband felt something in his hair. He grabbed it out of his hair and it fell onto his dinner table. As he was grabbing it by the tail it stung him.”
Richard managed to brush it off into the aisle when another passenger said: “Oh my god, that’s a scorpion.”
The creature was swiftly gathered up by the crew and unceremoniously flushed down the toilet.
“Our flight attendants helped a customer who was stung by what appeared to be a scorpion on a flight last week,” United said in a statement.
“Our crew immediately consulted with a MedLink physician on the ground who provided guidance throughout the incident and assured our crew that it was not a life-threatening matter.”
The incident may have only just come to light as it occurred on the same day a passenger on another United flight was pulled screaming from his seat lost two teeth and suffered a concussion and broken nose.
Footage of David Dao being pulled from his seat on Sunday evening and dragged unconscious down the plane aisle went viral and plunged the airline into a PR catastrophe.
He was later filmed running back onto the plane, disorientated and saying “just kill me”.
The doctor been randomly selected to be forced from the flight from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky, because it had been overbooked. He had calmly refused to leave as he had patients to see in the next day.
On Thursday, Dao’s lawyer Thomas Demetrio told reporters that Dao needed reconstructive surgery after the incident.
At the press conference in Chicago, Dao’s daughter Crystal Dao Pepper said: “What happened to my dad should’ve never happened to any human being.
“We were horrified and shocked and sickened to learn what had happened to him and to see what had happened to him. We hope that in the future nothing like this happens again.”
Demetrio said: “Here’s the law, real simple: If you’re going to eject a passenger, under no circumstances can it be done with unreasonable force or violence.”