Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Flight Attendant's Adventures 36,000 Feet and Below (14 page)

After we took off, the first class flight attendants said the passenger stumbled his way up the aisle toward them ranting. He then demanded a drink. The cockpit door was
open because the flight attendants were giving the pilots their beverage. The man drifted toward the cockpit, so the pilots immediately slammed the door shut. Our number one flight attendant Julio spoke Spanish and told the passenger he needed to return to his seat immediately. He stormed out of first class and headed back to his seat, which unfortunately, was in my section.

He sat on the aisle in the last row of coach. I had to pass him several times with the meal cart. The first time I passed by him, he kicked my calf. I politely said, “Don’t do that.” I was thinking to myself,
this man isn’t right
. As I was handing out the trays for the meal service, I happened to look toward the rear of the cabin. He was pacing back and forth around the exits. I felt very uneasy about the situation, but continued to empty out my meal cart. I made my way toward the galley after depleting the first cart. Luckily, the seatbelt sign was on, so I told him he needed to take his seat. He obeyed shaking his head back and forth. Again, I passed by him with a full meal cart. He reached over and slapped me on the rear end. I pointed my finger at him and firmly said, “Not one more time.”

I called Julio, a big guy who won’t take anything from anybody. Marching toward the back of the cabin with great authority, Julio told the ill-behaved passenger to keep his hands to
himself and remain seated. Unfortunately, Julio’s presence had no bearing on the passenger as he threatened to kill everyone on the aircraft. He then started to lose it, creating a huge raucous in the rear of the aircraft.

We called the captain and without hesitation he said to cuff him. Julio was elected to do the honors as I held the passenger’s hands behind his back. Surprisingly, he offered no resistance. Two pieces of emergency equipment are required for flight attendants to have with them at all times: a mask used for CPR and plastic cuffs. For the rest of the flight, the passenger had frequent outbursts and occasionally spit on the floor. Unbeknown to me, his family was traveling with him. His father and two sisters were sitting two rows ahead of him. They warned us against taking the handcuffs off, for fear he would become violent. Apparently, the man was recently released from a mental facility (perhaps prematurely!)

When we landed, security took the passenger off the airplane first. Then the captain and I were taken by car to the New York police precinct office located near the airport. Whenever there is an incident on the aircraft, there is always plenty of paperwork. Because the man was a threat to the cockpit, it became a federal offense. The last I heard while at the office, the passenger was still screaming at the top of his lungs at the police officers.

This happened to me again several years later from Seattle to Miami. Thank God, I was the boarding flight attendant because the following passenger never made it to Miami.

I enjoy taking tickets at the gate. It gives me a chance to welcome everyone on board, and it also gives me a chance to see
who
is coming on board. I was taking a man’s ticket when I noticed a foul body odor. I looked up to see where the smell was coming from and saw a tall, lanky passenger with uncombed hair and beard wearing a tattered trench coat. I took his ticket and welcomed him aboard. Following the passenger was a couple on their way to the islands. “You have to keep your eye on that passenger,” they advised. “Something is not right with him.”

Later on during the boarding process, a father of one of the passengers came up to me clearly shaken. “If that man stays on the aircraft, I am not letting my daughter go.” I knew who he was talking about. I asked why he was so concerned.

“He took his tennis racket out of its jacket and pretended like he was shooting everyone at the gate.” He also mentioned a couple of other weird behaviors. Because of my previous experience with the unstable passenger on the New York flight, I knew what the implications could be for the next five hours. I informed the agent, the captain, and the number one flight attendant. They all agreed to not take any chances and remove the passenger from the aircraft before we took off.

I watched as the agent approached the passenger. He was cool, calm and collected. We all breathed a sigh of relief when he allowed himself to be escorted off the plane without a fight. The passenger who was sitting next to him, thanked us and said, “Look in his seatback pocket.” In that short amount of time, the crazy man was taking our magazines and shredding them. He then took the strips of paper and stuffed the seatback compartment with them.

Thank God, we learned from our previous experience or who knows what story I would be telling you now!

have been very fortunate in my career not to have anyone die on my flight. My friend wasn’t so lucky. She was working a flight to Raleigh around the holidays. A middle-aged, slightly overweight man was snoring loudly. At first it was kind of funny, but then his snoring became a nuisance. Passengers looked at him, clearly annoyed, thinking someone should shut him up. A short while later he stopped snoring. My friend said she thought he was sleeping so soundly, she didn’t want to wake him up for the service. As everyone was deplaning, a man came up to the number one flight attendant and stated, “I think there is a dead person back there.” This was such a simple statement for something so profoundly sad. The man sitting behind him was a doctor. He said he should have known something was wrong because his snoring was so abnormal. Along with his carry on, Christmas presents were found in the overhead bin.
Apparently the presents were for his family, who were eagerly waiting for him at the gate in the airport.

That event flashed through my mind as I was working as a coach galley flight attendant on an international flight bound for Guatemala. I noticed a tiny, elderly Guatemalan man coming down the aisle. He had a concerned look on his face and his color did not look right. As he approached me, his dark eyes rolled back in his head. I caught him before he fell to the floor.
Oh no, not on my flight
. I dragged him to the exit row seat where there was more room. My training flashed thru my mind. I thought for sure I was going to have to perform CPR.

Just as I was about to get help, his eyes opened. A tiny smile appeared on his little round face. With the language barrier, I asked a Spanish speaking passenger to translate. He hadn’t eaten and felt faint and passed out. We gave him some fluids and thankfully he was fine.

ne of my favorite international layovers, as you know, was Rio de Janeiro. Most of the crew wanted to go out and do something fun because there is so much to explore.

On one particular layover, three of us decided to take the cable car to Mount Christo to see the Christ the Redeemer statue. (A tall structure of Jesus with his arms spread out). When we arrived at the top of the mountain, we saw a church service taking place. The sermon was in Portuguese, but we thought it would be interesting to attend. We were so tired that the chairs looked very appealing.

The only seats available were in the middle section, so we had to climb over people to sit down. We got some unwelcome looks as we took our seats. As I was gazing in awe at the Christ statue, a freakishly large grasshopper with what had to be a two foot wing span landed on my arm. He grabbed me tightly, and I instinctively let out a loud scream. He flew off my arm
and landed on top of a poor woman’s head. She screamed even louder than I did. The preacher stopped his sermon to see what was causing all the commotion. Every eye in the place was fixed on us. As I was frozen with embarrassment, he coolly surmised that the situation was not life threatening, and calmly resumed his service. I will never forget that grasshopper.

On another Rio trip, I was flying with flight attendant and Rio de Janeiro virgin Karen, who had never been to Brazil. She wanted to go with me to the flea market that was located near Copa Cabana. I told her for safety reasons she should not bring her camera or purse. I also advised her to stuff money in different pockets so should we get robbed, we would lose only what is in the one pocket.

After changing our clothes, we met downstairs in the lobby. The first thing I noticed was a purse dangling off Karen’s shoulder.
Oh well, I warned her!
Our plan was to take the bus over and walk back. It was probably a twenty minute walk.

The flea market is full of vendors who set their tents up to sell their wares. They have unbelievably low prices, which I took advantage of to stock up on Christmas presents. In the midst of our shopping spree, a young Portuguese man stopped Karen and me and asked for money. He must have been 16 or 17 years old. We told him politely no and continued walking
around. After shopping exhaustion set in, we decided it was time to return to the hotel.

As we were walking, I felt someone might be following us. I instructed Karen to continue walking and to not stop talking. I pretended pointing to something of interest to get a glimpse at who it was behind us. Sure enough, it was the kid who asked us for money earlier. I told Karen I thought he was about to try something and warned her to be prepared.

The main street was ahead of us. We crossed the alley to see if he was following us. He indeed was and made his move.

“Give me your money,” he said in broken English.

“No mas dinero,” I said.

He grabbed Karen’s purse that was dangling from her shoulder. She yanked it back and shouted, “No!” He looked at us stunned and then ran off.

Later on I was thinking about how lucky we were. He could have had a knife or a gun. I was grateful we had our angels protecting us that day.