Despite the airline admitting they made a mistake, to even get to this point is ridiculous. If the terrorists’ goal was to disrupt our lives, they’ve won that battle.
Airline’s medicine ban leaves passenger in coma
A diabetic man fell into a coma because airport staff refused to let him take his insulin on board a flight from Auckland to Christchurch.
Qantas yesterday apologised to Tui Peter Russell, who had a severe attack on the plane and was in hospital for two weeks.
Mr Russell said check-in staff at Auckland Airport told him he could not take his medication on board because it was dangerous.
The 43-year-old Glen Innes chef said he had flown many times with Qantas and had never had problems taking his medicine on board.
The medication was clearly labeled, he said.
“They thought I would hurt somebody, but I was only flying to Christchurch, not LA,” said Mr Russell.
I’m not sure which is worse – that the airline wouldn’t allow him his medicine or that the man chose to fly without it!
I think I would have chosen to stay in the airport with my medicine and sort things out with management rather than risking my life to make the flight.
It’s a good thing it didn’t happen in the US. Here he would have been arrested for causing a disturbance.
If the terrorists’ goal was to disrupt our lives, they’ve won that battle.
with the media’s help
My wife and I both take a migraine medication that requires the use of a conventional syringe, not an auto-injector. Post 9/11, neither one of us has been hassled about having a syringe in our carry-on luggage.
On one occasion we were at the gate waiting for our flight and I needed to give my wife an injection. I went to the security guard, told them what was up, showed them the medication, and gave my wife the injection – no problem.
But I agree with Frustrated that the guy should have remained in the airport and sorted this out. He took a helluva risk by getting on that plane.
I have been diabetic for 20+ years. How long is that flight? 2 maybe 3 hours? The only way I can think of to go into a coma in that short period, assuming your bold sugar level was at a normal level when you left, is to run it low by not eating. Insulin will not help this problem it would actually make it worse.
Either this guy was very very brittle or he doesn’t know how to manage his disease properly. 2 or 3 hours without insulin doesn’t lead to a coma unless you are very poorly managed or so brittle that you are probably close to death anyway.
All that being said….. What a bullshit stance for the airline. I can’t even tell you how many times I have had to purchase things in another city; cloths, medicine, computers, because the airlines have “misplaced” my baggage.
I cannot wait for the day when we’re all knocked out before we fly, then woken up at the other end.
He was stupid to fly without it, but he might have thought he could make it if he loaded himself up before leaving?? You don’t know the details.
The terrorists set the ball in motion and left us to keep kicking it.
jesus christ thats just awful.
And at Newark Airport, in a test, 20 of 23 weapons got past the screeners.
This would be funny if it didn’t suck so hard for the poor man. How many of us are in a position to cancel or postpone air travel at short notice or even replacing medications like insulin at a destiation? To blame this on the guy is pretty unreasonable.
You guys realize that if the man were not white this news would be altogether ignored?
11: Are you kidding? He would have been arrested for disrupting the flight by passing out. He’d be on the next plane to Gitmo or some country that wouldn’t think of torturing anyone.
Let’s just put the passengers in straight jackets. That would do it.
If any of you have even seen an insulin reaction you would defiantly think he was a drunk out of control. It ranges from being belligerent to flopping around like a person with epilepsy. I could easily see them arresting him and charging him for disruptive behavior. It is really hard to tell the difference. It takes someone who is medically trained or someone that knows what to look for.
I think this story is maybe misrepresenting the facts of the case because It usually takes days for someone to go into a coma from high blood sugar. Low blood sugar it is a matter of minutes. My guess is he didn’t eat on the plane because he didn’t know when he would get to take his shot. Not eating can cause a person to go under very fast subsequently going into a coma. I see it being more his fault than the airlines. Granted this is a stupid policy anyhow.
I had a friend who was put in jail one time here in Santa Ana and he is a diabetic. The guards refused to let him have any type of sugar whatsoever, and apparentely the meals they feed you are balogna sandwiches and milk so he is begging the guard to get him something with sugar and the guard just ignores him.
Well I didn’t know this but I guess if you don’t get sugar for awhile you start spitting up, and will eventually spit up whats supposed to go out the other side of you.
So long story short he actually sued and won some money out of it.
Insulin lowers blood sugar so if anyone went on a plane without insulin, that person’s sugar would be high, and the main side effect would be having to frequently run to the bathroom. Low blood sugar from too much insulin could result in a coma.
When I was pissed off at being searched three times before one flight a few months after 9-11, I envisoned a way to take over a plane. I told a friend of mine who is a pilot about my ideas and his face flushed and he told me that I should report what I knew to the TSA. Part of what I envisioned involved the use of insulin as a weapon.
So do we ban insulin? Of course not. I remember in the novel Shibumi, an assasin used a straw to stab someone in the neck and kill him. Almost any object can be used as a weapon. People are going to have to assume some risk when they fly, but the threat is way overblown. I believe El Al airlines based out of Israel has never had a flight highjacked by terrorists, but they actively use profiling. The simple answer would be to just copy their methods, but that would not be politically correct.
#15-John Henri. Your’s is a common misconception. It isn’t sugar that a diabetic needs. It is carbohydrates, pretty much in any form, which convert to glucose when digested. The bread of a sandwich is a good source. Milk is one of the best for low blood sugar because it doesn’t lead to a spike (rapid onset high sugar).
He won a lawsuit over that? Wow!
#17 I’m probably not getting the story completly right, I’m not an expert.
He won the case because they refused to feed him at whatever the regular feeding time was and when he was arrested he hadn’t eaten for awhile.
Eventually he spit up some nasty things and blacked out was transferred to the hospital and they basically tried to drop the charges against him to get him not to sue.
He was in for some traffic violation or something. I never cared to try and get the whole story, I’m sure it embarasses him. But yeah he got a decent little 10k or so settlement because of damage to his organs and they covered hospital and all that.
If you don’t get the sugar or carbohydrates or whatever it supposedly shortens your lifespan.
At the airport recently my I was confronted about the 1 oz. of Sprite remaining in my 3 year old’s bottle. One guard said he could take it if they x-rayed it (X-ray? What more are you going to see in a clear liquid on an x-ray?) After that another guard said that we had to pour it out and then decided to search my bags because I was obviously a risk for trying to break the rules. They threw away my kid’s Play-Doh, after a long debate between the guards about whether or not it was allowed.
The kicker is that once I got to my destination I found out that my son had surriptiously packed 3 pocket knives and 2 leathermans in his carry on. They somehow missed those in the search, but by damn, they got the Play-Doh.
If the story wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny.
Where are all those Bush apologists?
I fly pretty regularly into a terrorists “hot spot.” . I’ve even flown with Taliban and other radicals! So I’ve thought more than a little about the subject
I think this obsession with MINOR risk — like nail clippers, AA cells, hair gel, tiny pen knives, etc etc. is actually counterproductive because the security people spend all their effort on something that is little-to-no risk. This distraction makes it MORE LIKELY they will miss a real weapon.
One time my big-‘ole Leatherman with its huge super-sharp blades slipped into the liner of my roll-on suitcase. (I thought I’d lost it) I took about six or eight flights in Europe and the ME with that knife in there, and it wasn’t caught even once. (this was Sept 01 to Jan ’02 when security was ultra-high)
On one of those trips they stopped, searched for and confiscated one of those dull metal nail files from my wife! So, when they were fixated on my wife’s nail file (which, at most, could give a hostage a nasty scrape), my huge knife went right through!
You can ban a person from taking vital medicine on board a plane, but you can’t stop a bunch of people who are in this country illegally and on the FBI watch list and who paid cash for one way tickets from boarding a plane and flying it into a building. That’s what we in NY call republican logic.
my 2 year old son had surriptiously packed 3 pocket knives and 2 leathermans in his carry on
Wow. What a nice dad. Having your baby hold your goods for you.
I dunno about you, but I would not give a 3 year old boy 5 sharp knives to play with under any circumstances.