A US man is outraged after he was forced to spend a two-hour flight sitting in dog poo.
Michigan local Matthew Meehan boarded a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Michigan on Thursday (local time), and noticed something was wrong as soon as he sat down.
"I immediately smell something... I realised the person next to me also had their nose covered," he told Yahoo Lifestyle.
"I went to take my charger out, bent down completely to charge my phone and realised it's not just a smell, it's actually feces - and it's all over the back of my legs, it's all over the floor, all over the wall of the plane."
Mr Meehan had unwittingly sat in a large pile of dog droppings, which was later found to have been left by a sick service puppy.
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He went to notify flight crew about the biohazard immediately, and was shocked to discover they already knew it was there and were surprised it hadn't been cleaned up.
He says the flight broke Delta protocol by not having a full biohazard kit onboard. Instead of contacting staff at the gate to ask for cleaning materials, Mr Meehan claims the flight attendant gave him two paper towels and a mini bottle of gin to mop himself up.
"They didn't give me gloves," he told Yahoo Lifestyle. "I had to take my pants off because it's on the back of my pants, so feces, at this point, is transferring to my hands, with no kind of sanitizing solution to be able to clean anything with."
When he complained to the crew, they told him it wasn't their job to clean the mess and the plane would be leaving soon. He was resistant and the gate agent called over a manager, who he says was unhelpful and claimed it "wasn't her problem".
He was told he could either sit down or be left at the airport. At this point other passengers were also demanding the mess be thoroughly cleaned, so the manager sent another employee over with more paper towels but no kind of sanitising solution.
With somewhere he needed to be the next morning, Mr Meehan says he had no choice but to sit in the poo for the duration of the two-hour flight, which he says was "dehumanising".
"It felt like I was an animal tied up, forced to lay in their own feces that you see sometimes in PETA videos," he told Yahoo Lifestyle.
The flight was overbooked so he couldn't move to another seat.
Delta has apologised for the incident and says customer health and safety is the company's top priority. The airline says the crew used a disinfectant to clean the soiled area, and offered to reimburse Mr Meehan for his ruined shoes and suit as well as refund his ticket.
Newshub.
