Flight attendants encounter a lot on the job. They deal with unruly behaviors from passengers. Tight spaces. And intense turbulence. But one crew member just experienced literally the worst: a passenger "threw up in her mouth." And it happened just ten minutes after takeoff.
The flight attendant took to the subreddit r/flightattendants on July 25 to share her story. Until that time, she had zero interesting stories. The woman says she was only seven months into the job, and had just finished her probation period. Then she boarded a morning flight from Philadelphia to Boston. She was working in the back galley when suddenly, she heard a terrible sound behind her.
It "sounded like clumpy liquid falling onto the galley floor behind me," she wrote. She turned around and saw a man in his 40s standing there. The man was "harfing all over my galley floor with his head resting against the wall," she said. According to her, both bathrooms were occupied, so the man simply could not hold it in. The flight attendant says she suffers from mild emetophobia. This is a fear of vomit.
She panicked. All the same, she tried to help. She grabbed a trash bag and held it out for the passenger. The man turned around and sprayed another load onto the door and the bag. His eyes were closed, so he could not aim. Then the unthinkable occurred. The vomit hit the plastic bag and bounced back into the flight attendant's mouth.
"The spray hit the bag that I was holding in front of me, and bounced back into my neck and LITERALLY INTO MY MOUTH," she revealed. She swallowed about a teaspoon of the liquid. She says it was a mixture of hotdog chunks and corn. "having someone's half-digested corn and hotdog chunks dripping from your own chin is NOT the job I signed up for," she said.
The passenger felt terrible anyways. He apologized over and over. But the damage was already done. The flight attendant rushed to the bathroom and threw up from the taste and the smell. The passenger explained he had Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome. This rare condition makes him vomit violently for no reason. The passenger explained that it happens to him once every few years. He was deeply humiliated. He even offered to clean the entire mess, despite the flight attendant encouraging him to return to his seat.
She had to clean the mess herself while still tasting the vomit. She used a scooper to scrape chunks out of the seat cracks. She sanitized the seatbelt. Finally, she buried the mess under paper towels and coffee grounds. Her uniform was ruined. She was covered in "warm, steamy puke." She filed an official safety report with photos. "I apologize in advance to whoever has to process my safety report and see the pictures," she wrote. And now, she is terrified to go back to work. She concluded her post with two questions: "Can anyone top this? And do I HAVE to go back tomorrow?"
"Vomit is a biohazard," a user commented. "You will probably have a very nice series of vaccines and injections coming your way," to which the flight attendant replied: "Yeah! Inflight called me and asked me to monitor symptoms for the next 48 hours and to report any, and they mean ANY ailments or symptoms that creep up. Girl I'm tripping every time I sneeze or sniffle now!"
"I don’t know what I’d do in this situation other than pass away," wrote another commenter.
Another chimed in: "girl be so careful i saw a tiktok where an emirates fa had that happen and got MENINGITIS."
"Well. You just talked me out of ever being a flight attendant," wrote another.
Although many commenters said they would quit the job if this had happened to them, the flight attendant later gave an update, saying: "I'm going back tomorrow lmao. I picked up this 29 hour 4-day and need the per diem."
