I usually love flying all nighters! The passengers all sleep and there is usually no drama. Well last night proved both of these positive points wrong. Here is the condensed version of our night. There was soooo much more but I won't bore you with ALL the details. This is plenty!
It started off as a normal night with only a wacky flight attendant to amuse us. Yes we for sure meet crew and instantly click or ...not. So off we went. It was an odd mix of characters and we thought it must be a full moon! About an hour in several passengers tell us that there is a lady behaving strangely. She could not sit still and kept flailing her arms and being loud. The man she was traveling with told us she was sick so we brought her a bag just in case. I came back to check on her and asked if she was ok. The guy would not look at me and told me she was fine. She had her head between her legs and her arms on the floor. Clearly she was not fine. So I ask again what kind of sick is she? Flu, motion sick, drank to much? He tells me she is fine and had a few drinks. also she has sickle cell and just took her meds and is waiting for them to kick in. I tell him if he needs anything to let us know. As we are in the aisle doing our service she goes to the back galley. I go check and she is frantically trying to open bins in the galley. I ask her what she needs and she says a drink. So I get her a sprite and take her back to her seat. She is super out of it and can barely make it to her row. She is not ok and everyone around her is annoyed at her melt downs. We call for a doctor and for the first time ever there was none. She came back to the galley to talk to us and tells us she ran out of her meds. She just needs some oxycotton and she will be fine. Even just a little will be ok, or percacet even vicadin would help. She promises she is not a drug addict! She has someone meeting her in EWR with her medicine so its ok. Pieces are starting to fall in place. The pilots are in contact with doctors on the ground who say we need to land and get her off things may get worse. Let me be clear she was trying so hard but had zero control of herself. Poor thing was barefoot with her eyelashes falling off. So we make the announcement that we will be landing in Denver. Now all the people who were complaining about her behavior are even more angry that we are landing to remove her. Go figure how else did they think she would get off. They have yet to make special parachutes for us. I go to talk to her and the guy she is traveling with is yelling at her that this is all your fault! He pushes her and continues to yell. I comfort her and tell him to knock it off! He tried to argue with me and I broke out my mom voice and explained that if he touched her again or so much as said a mean word I would have not only the paramedics but the police meet our plane! Mom voice works everytime! I also had to use it on the grandma losing her mind behind them. She kept egging them on so she was told to shut it as well. We land and the paramedics take her off. And guess who does not get off? I looked at this tool and said " you can go with her." and he says" No I am not going she has cost me enough time and I have to meet someone in EWR" OH MY SOUL!!!! He was leaving her in Denver all alone! Well plot twist his behavior made it impossible for him to go on! Now this man is over 6 feet tall and clearly on drugs as well. He stumbled as he walked, and was very angry. So I was a little concerned he was going to go out fighting. As we were dealing with this we had asked all passengers to stay seated. Most did but a handful continued to come up as we were trying to get the guy off the plane to loudly complain or ask if they could use the bathroom up front. Umm no go to the back and sit down. Luckily he yelled and cussed but no punches thrown. Cops were called and we left him at the gate. Much to the crabby grandmas dismay the pilots have to do all of their safety checks and refuel before we can take off. She seriously yelled at me for this. UGGG! Finally on our way and we only arrived 2 hours late. Making it a10am arrival. This is a long time to be up people!
So thankful for 2 of the girls on our crew! We worked non stop together to deal with this situation, to make sure everyone was safe including ourselves. It was especially hard since the story we were getting kept changing so it was hard to know what was really going on. Passengers later told us she was freaking out in the boarding area and popping a lot of pills. This would have been great to know on the ground! We had no idea until we were in the air. Our assumption is she is addicted to oxy and ran out. So detox in the sky and it did not go well. I have already spoken to supervisors, the union and written a report. If you are thinking of flying while on drugs or while you have just run out please reconsider! Thanks, Your Girl in Blue
