Cheerfulflyer

I was on a short NZ international flight today and an hour prior to landing, the purser opens an overhead just above my head. I was sitting on the isle seat. Out falls a plastic bag (seemed like a duty free shopping bag with a large bottle of alcohol inside) right on top of my head. FA is apologitic but didn't seem to care for the fact that I got really hurt. I told her that I would like a NZ rep to meet me at the gate and I would like a medical check up. She didnn't offer any first aid or ice to prevent swelling. An hour later I arrive and was told by the FA to remain seated. I wait for everyone to deplane and after 15mind, comes a NZ rep, who asks me to sit just outside the jetbridge. She has the paramedics come. I wait another 15-20mins for them. The paramedics offer ice and tell me to buy painkiller from the transit shops. I had a connecting flight and was planning to stay in the transit area. The paramedics said there were no medical facilities at the AKL airport and if I went to the hospital, I would have to wait 5-6 hours to be served. But they thought it was nothing that I ought to worry about. A heavy bottle falling on anyone's head is indeed worrisome. They gave me an icepack, wrote a report and left.

My head still hurts even after the icepack and the pain killer. However, I don't have any bleeding or nausea or vision blurring, which may signal something a lot more serious. But I am concerned as I am about to depart on another international flight and then two days later on a longerhaul international flight. Do you think the airline's treatment was fair? It was ironic that the same FA made the announcement upon landing to take care when opening the overhead but didn't practise this herself. What do you think about the paramedics downplaying the injury? Would anyone have insisted on a physician or a more extensive examination? How do airlnes deal with injuries caused by their own employees?

Your informed and helpful contribution will be greatly appreciated. I am still in a but of pain as I write this. It has been 7 hours since the incident. Thank you.

cordelli

I fail to see how this is carelessness on the flight attendant. As everybody knows, things can and do shift, and duty free bags are usually slippery plastic and usually the first thing to slide out when the overhead is open. They can't possibly check every time they open to see if something will fall out.

Did you ask for ice on board? It seems that you apparently thought it was a much more serious injury than they did.

If you believe your injury was more extensive than the paramedics did, you should have gotten medical treatment. Again, they apparently thought it was not as serious of an incident as you did.

The only person who can answer your questions is you and if you seek medical treatment the person providing the treatment. If you are concerned, go get checked to be sure.

gobluetwo

I won't say whether or not I believe it was fair treatment, but I do agree with cordelli that if you're that concerned about it, quit asking a bunch of people on the internet and go see a medical professional!

Loren Pechtel

They warn us that stuff might have shifted and to be careful, they can follow their own instructions!

cordelli

And you know they didn't because???????

I wasn't aware that you were there to see how they opened the overhead, my mistake.

InkUnderNails

To the OP: If the paramedics were involved, there is likely a report or multiple reports. Request copies. Go to your Dr. for a follow up. If there is no long term injury, call it good fortune. If there is a long-term problem, you will have the paper trail for additional documentation.

Many years ago I had a medical incident on a plane and paramedics were called. It was not anything that involved flight crews, but it was serious. I got copies (well my wife did as I was not really back to full speed) from the airline, the EMT's and the airport police. They readily provided it. I took it all to my doctor as it had valuable observations, BP, temperature, heart rate and other things that my doctor found very useful. There was a huge pile of paperwork.

BadgerBoi

...because she opened the overhead and let a freakin' bottle of duty free booze fall on the OP's head.

A passenger was injured by the actions of a flight attendant, so of course it turns into yet another "blame the OP" thread.

squeakr

There are 2 questions here -

- none of us are medical personnel. If I had been hit on the head and was still in pain I would see a doctor. Ideally i would have gone to the ER even if i had to wait. Head injuries are nothing to ignore.

- if you're wondering if what they did was "fair" - again, none of us can answer that. You had a plane to catch and so chose (it sounds like) not to go to the ER and wait. I don't know what other options there would have been - to do an MRI in the airport?

They may have dismissed the injury and they might be right.
They may have dismissed the injury and they might be wrong.
There's no way to know unless you insist on going to a hospital and getting more fully checked out/

Good luck and hope you are fine soon.

nrr

(1)Were you given a copy of the report? If (hopefully not) problems arise in the future, you can reference them to the report.
(2)Head injuries (from things I've read) can seem benign at first, but can show up later on in a more serious way.
(3)The FA was not careful in opening the overhead bin, otherwise you would not have been injured.

Cheerfulflyer

Thank you everyone for your responses. I am fine now; still have a bit of pain on my head but are not fretting about it. For those who fail to see the gravity of the situation, I ask you to imagine you or someone you care about being in the seat that I was in and have the weight of a full 2L bottle fall on your head. Yes, it didn't kill me but it is possible that it would have done a lot more damage to someone else. Think about an ifant, whose skull isn't as hard as that of an adult. How would you feel if your child was injured and killed?

I don't know about you, but whenever I open the overhead mid flight, I do it very very slowly so as to prevent happening exactly what happened to me. And there is certainly a way to do this so that the act falls under the class of such adjectives as "careful", "considerate", "caring" etc. And the other extreeme would be "careless"', "inconsiderate" etc. Yes, the bags can be very slippery but any careful opening of the overhead will effetctively prevent that from falling on someone's head and causing a head injury.

I of course did not pay attention to the way the FA opened the overhead compartment, which caused the injury. But right after opening mine, she moved to the next one and this time I did pay attention. And what I observed was she did not do it carefully at all. It was a quick snap. It shocked me because, I was just injured a few moments ago and her action would have caused the person in front of me a similar injury.

What upsetted me was (1) she didn't seem to take my injury seriously; (2) she failed to engage proper first aid care. And all this despite me telling her that I was in considerable pain and wanted to have a medical examination immediately upon arrival. The paramedics were surprised that I hadn't been offered any first aid. But they too downplayed the implications of the injury and tried to influence me not to seek immediate medical attention because (1) it would take me a long time to go through the hospital and I most likely won't be able to make my fligh on time; (2) there will be problems with immigration because I didn't have proper credentials to enter New Zealand and must remain in the transit area. It did make me wonder if I would have had to bleed to death should the injury been more serious since I didn't have visa to enter NZ. But thank god it didn't come to that.

I would like to thank others for the sympathetic comments.

Cheerfulflyer

Thank you nrr!

(1) Yes, I did get a copy of the report and I've kept it with me. The paramedics told me that the report should be showed to them if they were called again.
(2) This is why I took the issue a lot more seriously than if the bottle had hit my arm or even cracked open my limbs.
(3) I agree with you that under no description of the word 'careful' falls what she did when she opened the overhead. And I also maintain that there is a careful way to open overhead cabinets, which would have effectively prevented that injury. I have opened overhead compartments a few thousand times (not an exceggeration, since like many of you, I travel so much and must access my computer, papers, books, blankie etc) and in no occasion did anything ever fall from it let alone on anyone. Of course, had I not been careful, I would have injured and sometimes quite seriously passengers that were seated right under. This incident does make me think twice about sitting on aisle seats, which I generally prefer to do for easy access whether I am in front or at the back.

B747-437B

This is actually a huge concern. One of the oldest tricks in the book is for a potential refugee to fake (or in some cases, even self-afflict) an injury/illness and be rushed to hospital, and then claim asylum once they are inside the country. I would not be surprised if that played a significant role in the way you were treated.

catocony

So who's at fault here - the FA for not opening the bin in a "careful" manner, or the person who brought the bottle on board and failed to secure it properly?

The rest really sounds like whining on the OPs front. You got konked on the head by a bottle. Ok, that's bad, and unfortunate. What level of first aid did you require? Were you bleeding? Did you loose consciousness? Were you obviously concussed? It doesn't sound like it, so what exactly were you expecting from the FAs short of maybe a bag of ice to put on your head?

The paramedics came, determined that you weren't concussed, and since you weren't eligible to enter New Zealand, advised you to continue on. Ok, that sounds reasonable. If you wanted to demand a hospital visit, then you should have and you could have taken it up with NZ Immigration. Other than that, there's not a lot that could be done.

Once you arrived at wherever you were traveling to, you should have gone to a hospital there and gotten fully checked out. Since it appears you didn't do that, it's your fault at this point.

cordelli

Really, a two liter bottle falling a distance of about three feet (from the overhead to the armrest) is going to crack open your limbs?

This is getting too funny.

squeakr

OP has had his /her say; any snarky commentary is just that and will be deleted.
thanks

squeakr

co Mod TS/S