Girl Suffers Allergic Reaction To Nuts On Plane, ‘Simple Request’ Turns Into ‘Big Production’

A girl suffered an allergic reaction to nuts served aboard a flight she took with her family on United Airlines. Everything unraveled because the crew informed the passengers United was “not a nut-free airline.”

The Irish Independent covers the incident in which a family was removed from the flight over their daughter’s allergic reaction, requiring her to be hospitalized. The unidentified family from Dublin was flying to New Jersey when the 4-year-old girl suddenly went into “anaphylactic shock” upon eating nuts served on the plane. A fellow passenger gave her an adrenaline shot before the airline turned around back to Dublin so she could go to the hospital.

The girl’s mother said, “We were only going to discommode 10 other people because we were all in first class. They asked the other people but then a simple request seemed to turn into a big production.”

She adds that her daughter had never suffered an extreme allergic reaction before, but cashews in the nuts package caused her face to swell and hives to break out.

United Airlines allegedly agreed to fly the family on a nut-free flight after the traumatic incident, but when they boarded the plane again, the flight apparently refused to ban nuts once again.

United released this statement.

“Although we do not serve peanuts on our flights, it’s not possible to prevent customers from bringing food items on board that contain peanuts.”

They tell fliers not to hesitate telling flight attendants about someone with an allergy, but also said, “For operational reasons, we cannot remove any onboard products based on individual customer requests, and we do not offer nut-free buffer zones on our aircraft.”

Ironically, a very similar event like this happened to another 4-year-old girl when she had an allergic reaction from nuts being opened in a package by a passenger four rows from her. Ryanair crew informed the plane full of fliers that a young passenger with a life-threatening allergy to nuts was on board and requested that no one open their packages of nuts. A male passenger disregarded the airline’s requests and proceeded to open a bag of nuts, resulting in the girl having a severe reaction. The Mirror reported on this event involving an unreasonable passenger who didn’t listen to the crew when warned.

Fae Platten stopped breathing and passed out. Like the last girl who had an allergic reaction to nuts, Fae was injected with adrenaline and taken to the hospital once the plane landed. Thankfully, medical personnel were on board both flights when the allergic reactions occurred.

[Images via Bing and SFGate]