Meghan Reinertsen United Airlines passenger severe diarrhoea and vomiting episode that caused havoc on connecting flight goes viral on TikTok.
'I am patient zero...' An airlines passenger has admitted causing a recent United Airlines flight to be cancelled after experiencing an extreme bout of diarrhoea and vomiting that led to the aircraft's 'tiny' bathroom to be 'destroyed.'
Meghan Reinertsen a nanny and budding actress in a since viral social media post admitted that she was to blame for the mid-air disaster, revealing having spent an hour and a half locked inside the lavatory during a July 2024 flight from Newark to Indianapolis.
Reinertsen said the nightmare experience began moments before boarding her connecting flight home from Portugal, when she suddenly felt the first waves of what she later discovered was severe food poisoning.
What is food poisoning and what causes it?
Although food poisoning is rarely fatal, according to the Cleveland Clinic, symptoms of the illness, including vomiting and diarrhea, can feel deadly.
'Something is brewing. Something is happening that I am not prepared to deal with,' she recalled with her 92K followers on TikTok video that has racked up nearly 2 million views (see below at bottom of page).
Despite her fears, she took her seat and hoped for the best -- but within 30 minutes the airlines passenger was drenched in sweat, crying and doubled over in pain.
Reinertsen made it to the bathroom just in time.
Luckily for Reinertsen, her rumbling belly didn't cause the plane to make an unscheduled stop. It did, however, stop her fellow passengers from using the bathroom.
But there was more to come.
'For the next 20 minutes I had more diarrhea than any human should ever have in their life,' she said, adding that she soon started vomiting as well.
Dealing with severe diarrhoea while flying
She said she panicked in the tiny, claustrophobic area before she began screaming for help from the flight attendants, who gave her bags.
The flight crew allowed her to stay in the bathroom for the entire flight. They even got special clearance from the pilot to allow her to remain where she was for landing.
Reinertsen said she couldn't make it back to her seat in her condition, which prompted the flight attendant to tell her through the door to 'brace for impact'.
Once they were on the ground, she was told that the next flight with that plane had been canceled.
'A flight attendant comes over and says, 'Everybody's off the plane now, go ahead and take your time and come out when you can, the next flight has been cancelled," Reinertsen said. 'In the moment, I'm not thinking it is because of me.'
The flight attendant then told her that a hazmat team would be coming to clean up her mess.
Meghan Reinertsen confession: 'I am patient zero!'
'Got it, so you canceled that flight because of me...because you don't know if I brought something back from Portugal. And I am a biohazard. I am patient zero,' she said.
She even had to be put in a wheelchair when she was ready to disembark because she couldn't walk.
'They had to wheel me off this plane. I can't walk. They gotta get me in a wheelchair,' she said.
Reinertsen was wheeled to baggage claim where she she told of having to endure the shocked stares of all her fellow passengers who 'undoubtedly' knew she was the woman in the bathroom for the entire flight.
Reinertsen said her illness, which persisted days after the horrific flight, came as a result of eating an undercooked hamburger the night before her flight.
United Airlines confirmed the incident to Metro in July 2024, saying: 'Our flight crew is trained to assist customers in situations like this and helped as much as they could during the flight and upon arrival in Indianapolis.'
The episode follows a September, 2024, Delta Airlines flight from Detroit to Amsterdam which was forced to make an emergency landing in New York, when several passengers exhibited signs of food poisoning from the reportedly 'spoiled' food served while at 30,000 feet.