“Houston to Quito flight 1035 returned to the gate after a scorpion reportedly emerged from a customer’s clothing,” United said in a statement to KPRC2. “Paramedics at the gate immediately examined the customer and determined that he had not been stung. The customer declined further medical treatment and, as a precaution, a new aircraft was arranged. We provided all passengers with a meal voucher due to the delay and the flight, with the customer aboard, has departed for Quito.”
Just last month another passenger on a United flight from Houston was stung by an inch and a half long scorpion that had fallen from the overhead bins.
“It fell in my hair. I grabbed it. I was hanging onto it by its tail,” passenger Richard Bell told GlobalNews.ca.
“I looked down and I thought, ‘Aw, it kind of looks like a little lobster,” Bell’s wife Linda added.
After being informed by another passenger that the insect could be poisonous, Bell put the scorpion down on a plate. Foolishly, the man went to pick the venomous creature up again and was stung on his finger.
Though EMTs were called, Bell ultimately declined treatment as the wound was not life threatening.
United has been having a rough season. In another incident on April 9, United Airlines sparked global outrage after 69-year-old Dr. David Dao was violently dragged from his flight after the airline overbooked tickets.
Dao, who came to the US in 1975, described the incident as more terrifying than his experience fleeing Vietnam over three decades ago.
The airline has now settled with Dao for an undisclosed amount.
Meanwhile, they are also facing a lawsuit over the death of Samuel the Rabbit, a massive hare that was on track to become the largest in the world.
The 10-month-old, three-foot-long giant rabbit Simon was travelling from Heathrow to Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport on April 19, where he was found dead. Just three hours before the flight, a vet had declared him “fit as a fiddle.”
Lawyers for the owners believe that the rabbit died after being placed in a freezer for 16 hours, and have alleged that the airline cremated the animal’s remains without permission.
