A passenger on a 5 a.m. Spirit Airlines flight ordered the Ghirardelli hot chocolate – and became almost immediately ill with sweat, vomit, and severe diarrhea for the rest of the flight.
Within minutes, she says she was drenched in sweat and consumed by anxiety. She says she was feeling intensely nauseous despite having zero history of motion sickness. She says she asked the flight attendant for a bag. …Five minutes later, she threw up.
@racheldont As if I needed another reason to never fly spirit again #spiritairlines #foodpoisoning #flying #traveling ♬ original sound – Racheldont
Some ultra-low cost carriers offer a quality product you can pay for. Since you’re paying extra for everything, they need to offer value to convince you to pay. Volotea’s butter chicken on an hour and a half flight is a perfect example of this.
Spirit Airlines offers an assortment of snacks for purchase and since they’re trying to get you to buy them the options are considered pretty good by many. My seven year old loves them (though they’re not as much to my taste as the Volotea butter chicken).
The idea of Ghiradelli hot chocolate on a plane sounds pretty good in theory, until realizing it’s an instant hot chocolate packet with water added, not someone reducing down real chocolate over a stove and mixing in cream.
Spirit isn’t Angelina’s on the Rue di Rivoli (next to Le Meurice Hotel), which while an absolute tourist trap offers some of the best hot chocolate you’ll ever try. I was first turned onto it over a decade ago by the Emmy-winning co-writer of the Oscars who used to pair with Billy Crystal. Artie Lange, from MADtv and the Howard Stern Show, who took the same recommendation said that the place “changed his life.”
Making hot chocolate with tank water, though? Airline tank water is disgusting. Spirit’s tank water just received a ‘D’ grade in an evaluation of regulatory filings, ahead only of JetBlue and American (and with the same overall grade).
Ultimately, disinfecting water tanks annually does not appeal to me. I choose not to drink the coffee, and that goes even for United’s Illy. I don’t brush my teeth on long haul flights with water from the lav sink! I bring a bottle of water in with me.
Best I’m skeptical that was the cause of this woman getting sick.
- The fastest food poisoning comes from toxins that still take over half an hour to go into effect, like Staph toxin (30 minutes to 8 hours) and Bacillus cereus (30 minutes to 6 hours).
- She was served hot water. That doesn’t guarantee safety (toxins can be heat stable), but it does make reduce the chances that live bacteria from the tank immediately attacked her.
- Maybe it was the stress of her all-nighter, 5 a.m. flight, and empty stomach? Or an already-incubating virus or bacteria from something she’d eaten earlier on her night out?
- It could also have been something with the hot chocolate packet – this is less likely, but more than tank water affecting her within minutes. It could also have been the handling by the flight attendant.
I’d start with what were you eating and drinking during your all-nighter, and what led you into that situation followed by a 5 a.m. Spirit flight in the first place?
She could have bought the hot chocolate trying to suppress the symptoms of being sick that she was already starting to feel.
One thing that wasn’t discussed is that maybe she was allergic to something in the the chocolate.
Another thing is that the water tanks could have had some sort of cleaning solvent left in them and her body reacted to it.
Arr, matey! …this be some ‘bottom of the barrel’ content, Mr. Leff.
I got food poisoning once from milk in an airport lounge. I didn’t start my projectile vomiting until landing on the flight, 2-3 hours later, but I started feeling something wrong an hour or so later. So I’m doubtful she was vomiting 15 minutes after ingesting the culprit. I’d guess it was something she had at the airport.
As a physician, I would suspect it was something pre-existing (bug, food poisoning) she was suffering from and only manifested itself once she got on the plane; the hot chocolate was coincidental.
@jns — Coulda been… Ex-Lax Chocolate!
@Maryland was mentioning recently… there is a nasty flu going around…
So it’s not food poisoning, but you cant tell.me you’ve never eaten or drank something that didnt break a perfectly good damn.
Actually, there need be no correlation between the perceived quality of the carrier and the food offerings – providing you pay a la carte. The freeing of the item from the bundle allows the customer to register their prefernce for quality.
This example is a case in point. Another is a few years ago when BA went from bundled food in European coach to a a carte food. They chose to source from high-end UK supermarket, Marks & Spencer. The result was that the quality of the food went through the roof. So peoplel who want the cheapestseat (e.g. on a flight of only 2-3 hours) can rewgister the fact it matters what they eat.
She should have been on a premium Delta flight with premium 5.0 rated airplane tap water.
Another doctor here. So many holes in the logic of this encounter.
1. This passenger could not have been the only one drinking water from the airplane supply. Were others sickened?
2. Very few things make one have a physiologic reaction quickly and, of those, most have some kind of “taste” that would make them recognizable before ingesting large quantities. Now of course, there are things that would do this covertly, but common things being common…
3. One has to wonder about the events leading up to this situation and the patients medical, medication and recreational pharmaceutical use. I see a lot of hyperemesis cannabinoid syndrome (puking from too much pot)…especially in people with medical cards.
We are see a lot of what we call “teens and twenties with tubes.” So many people of this age are having undiagnosable issues resulting in feeding tubes and all sorts of crazy stuff. Most of them are deeply anxious, depressed or have some other psychological co-occurring situation. It’s crazy and now that there is Dr. ChatGPT (released today) it’s only going to get worse.
Subclade K, a new highly contagious variant of influenza A. It was not included in this year’s vaccinations because it appeared too late. Seven deaths in Maryland since mid December. Sudden onset. Take precautions. Bucket & extra TP may be required .
Sounds to me like an allergic reaction of some sort. I had very similar symptoms after eating duck eggs (weird I know) and I didn’t figure out it was the eggs until this happened about 4 times.
Way too soon after drinking the chocolate for it to be the bad thing that made her barf. No report of others on the same flight losing their breakfast, so it was something she ate or drank an hour or so earlier. Don’t blame the airline for everything.