- Chidozie Uzoezie
After Snake and Rat, Passenger Stung by Scorpion on a Flight
As if the week wasn’t already too bad for United Airlines after it forcibly removed a passenger from a flight, another passenger has been stung by scorpion on one of its flights.
Richard Bell and his wife Linda were on United flight from Houston to Calgary after a two-week holiday in Mexico. The couple was sitting in business class when the scorpion dropped on Richard’s head while he was eating lunch.
According to Canadian news agency Global News, the scorpion which was about an inch and a half long, fell out of an overhead bin onto Richard’s head. He picked it up by the tail and dropped it on his plate.
The scorpion stung him when he attempted to pick it up again at which point he tossed it on the floor and a fellow passenger tramped on it before a crew member threw it into the toilet.
Fortunately, the sting wasn’t life-threatening, and the flight crew discussed the situation with a physician on the ground. Emergency medical services met the plane on landing, but the man declined transport to hospital.
It’s not clear how the scorpion got on the plane and into the overhead compartment, but United Airlines said that it’s looking into the incident.
There have been incidents of reptiles and rodents finding their ways onboard aircraft. Last year, a snake emerged from the overhead bin of an Aeromexico's Boeing 737 while performing a flight.
In March, 2017, passengers on a San Francisco bound British Airways flight from London Heathrow suffered a four-hour delay due to the discovery of a mouse on the plane.
