A Delta Air Lines first class passenger was poisoned by a toxic weed in his salad while flying Chicago to Seattle on October 21 enroute back being with his father who passed away from cancer. After reporting the meal issue on board, a flight attendant stole the evidence, he says, in attempt at a cover up.
The reader found black nightshade (solanum nigrum) in his meal – only realizing what it was after he ate some. The flight was met by paramedics on arrival in Seattle.
That is some nasty stuff, with typical onset of early symptoms like nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bitter or burning taste in the mouth 30 minutes to 3 hours after ingestion.
As illness continues, you can experience drowsiness, confusion, slowed pulse, dilated pupils, and — in higher doses — respiratory depression or coma. Usually patients recover within 24 hours. Fatalities are rare but have occurred (mostly in children).
As few as 5–10 unripe berries can cause stomach distress. Neurotoxic effects will generally require eating more than 20 unripe berries (or similar leaf amounts).
1) While eating my entree (Southwest Harvest Salad) in the dimmed cabin, I tasted something “off” as I swallowed a mouthful of my otherwise delightful salad.
2) I turned on the overhead light to look more closely at the salad, and promptly found a sizeable stalk of black nightshade (Solanum nigra), flowers and all.
3) This is a well known toxic plant that is a weed routinely found in agricultural settings.
4) I had unknowingly ingested an unknown amount before noticing it.
5) I became quite ill, with all of the symptoms I now know to be typical: intestinal cramping, diarrhea, excess salivation, nausea, vomiting.
6) Fortunately, I was able to save the uneaten stalk of nightshade. To provide to the paramedics who took me off the plane at Sea-Tac. So they’d know what they were dealing with. I informed lead flight attendant Larisa of my intention to save the specimen
7) Unfortunately, while in the forward bathroom being very sick, Larisa took the specimen. She refused to return it to me. She refused to show it to the paramedics. She claimed it was “Delta’s property now”.
He says he reached out to Delta with concern over the incident, and their response seemed callous – an offer of 3,000 miles. According to a Delta spokesperson,
We take this report seriously and remain in touch with the customer. Our next steps are to investigate what is being said and we’ll go from there. Delta has stringent security and quality assurance measures embedded within our onboard food and beverage operation.
In hindsight, I guess he should have ordered the meatballs. Unfortunately the Delta Shake Shack burger is only available on flights out of the airline’s hubs.
Is Jose Andres aware of this?
The airline is handling this terribly so it’s good he took pictures. Time for a big lawsuit against Delta and its food provider, and bring in the feds and make a media stink.
Premium Poison Salad
Well known? I don’t know many who would know! The fact that he did was impressive.
“This is a well known toxic plant that is a weed routinely found in agricultural settings.”
Could be worse…he could have ordered the fish.
Would never have known to watch for that in food
There is the small chance it was a ‘plant’ (pun intended) but who would put themselves through that for some unknown case or compensation
3,000 SkyPesos, worth $30 at break-even. How’s $3,000, sound? The airline should provide a full refund and offer a lot more to make things right. And, if crew members are confiscating evidence, that’s grounds for punitive damages, if the airline condones such behavior. Obviously, not Dr. Dao-level, but I hope this victim gets decent settlement when all is said and done. Now, where’s @Tim Dunn to tell us that other airlines ‘accidentally’ poison their passengers and hide evidence, too.
If this happened to him, it must have happened to others, not necessarily on the same flight. Most folks would not be able to determine the cause. Could this possibly be a one-off? There is also a remote chance that this is a scam.
Wow.
Serving poisonous food is a new low for the airlines.
We already know the airline CEOs couldn’t care less about providing a favorable passenger experience. However, if they kill off the passengers, they kill off their revenue. This is something they definitely should care about.
I’m sure the lib-lawyers are lining up to take his case
This does happen occasionally. Less likely with greenhouse lettuces, but not impossible. The flight attendants should have collected all similar meals and reported the incident to catering immediately. It seems criminal to abscond with evidence.
Add another thing to avoid after Don’t Eat The Fish.
Jokes aside, this is just another example of Delta showing how callous they are about the passenger. Their pretense of caring has become awfully threadbare.