What the hell??
College Professor Claims American Airlines Racially Profiled Sick Black Woman To Have Ebola
Ebola paranoia is reaching a fever pitch. With infected patients hopping on planes and traveling state-to-state left and right, airline workers might be exhibiting a heightened sense of fear. But is that fear translating to racism? Via MailOnline:
A college professor is claiming that an American Airlines crew who feared Ebola locked a sick woman in an airplane bathroom after she vomited in the aisle.
American Airlines is strongly denying the claim and said the crew never believed the ill passenger was suffering from the deadly disease – and that the traveled wanted to stay in the lavatory in case she was ill again.
The incident happened on American Airlines Flight 2325 Thursday night from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago.
University of Texas professor Martha Shelby told MailOnline she heard a flight attendant say to the woman: ‘Because of our current health situation, we’re going to have to ask you to stay in the bathroom.’
The cabin crew then cordoned off the back of the airplane with seat belt extenders. When the plane landed and the woman was carted off the plane by medics, flight attendants wrapped her carry-on luggage in plastic before sending it off the plane with her, professor Shelby, who is chair of the Asian studies department in Austin, said.
She believes that because the ill woman was black, she was treated as if she had Ebola.
‘I’m outraged. And some of my fellow passengers were, too. We just could not believe what we have seen… they thought it was about race, too,’ she said.
When the plane began to land, professor Shelby said, she heard a flight attendant tell the passenger in the lavatory: ‘You’re going to have to stay in there, hang on tight.’
The incident speaks to a growing fear that sick air travelers could be carrying Ebola. Passengers from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, have been hauled off planes by hazmat-clad officials after getting ill on board. So far, all of them have tested negative for the deadly disease.
Today, Washington DC lobbyist Terry Thames caused a lock down of part of the Pentagon after she got ill and vomited outside the Defense Department offices.
However, Dallas nurse Amber Vinson flew on two Frontier Airlines flights after being exposed to Ebola while treating ‘patient zero’ Thomas Eric Duncan. She was hospitalized with the disease just hours after flying from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday night.
American Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Mohr said professor Shelby had ‘absolutely the wrong reading’ of the situation on the plane.
Ms Mohr said the passenger became ‘extremely, violently ill’ and projectile vomited while waiting to get into a lavatory on the plane.
Ebola was never mentioned. In fact, that flight attendants suspected the passenger had food poisoning.
Ms Mohr also denied that the woman was locked in the bathroom.‘The passenger who was sick elected to go into lavatory and elected to remain there for the short duration of the flight. At no time was she ever locked in lavatory. elected to stay there,’ Ms Mohr said.
Hmmm…don’t see what this lady has to gain by making up such a thing, but stranger things have happened. Who do YOU believe?
