Did Air Marshal Endanger United Passengers?
 

According to NBC, after the attack with unknown substance, the Marshal boarded a United international flight.

How could they know if he was injected with a contagious disease or not?

This part really bothers me as the FAM not only knew he was stabbed with a syringe but he still took the flight as opposed to immediately seeking medical attention :mad:

Sooooo selfish. What a creep.

This situation is frightening, not only to the FAM who was exposed to an unknown substance, but to an entire aircraft full of passengers and crew.

I have compassion for the FAM and the need to quickly get him checked-out, but not at the risk of all those on the aircraft, who, presumably, were not informed of the incident at the time and given a option not to board.

This seems a serious breach of aircraft security and a potential public health threat that should not have been allowed to happen.

“The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few” applies here, I believe.


Addition: Just saw this on the NBC Nightly News, basically quoting the KPRC report.

DEN

To be honest, I think I would have done the same thing. I would have been scared and worried, but since whatever the substance was did not kill me or immediately have some symptoms (wasn’t a toxin), if it was any type of disease (hello Ebola??) it would take several days surely to reach the point where I would be infectious. (No, I am not a doctor and that previous statement is only my reasoning, true or false I would not know for sure).

I would have reported it immediately on arrival and headed for a hospital.

I would not have wanted to put my trust in the Nigerian health system, no matter how good in practice it may be.

Maybe he was following SOP (if there are any for this situation?)

Agreed--few diseases manifest fast enough to be a threat during the flight.

On the other hand, by not taking it perhaps that was the objective--get the FAM off the flight to attack it.

please confine comments to those of a PRACTICAL nature
 

thanks so much
squeakr

co Mod TS/S

I just hope this leads to a written policy REQUIRING any such incidents to be immediately reported and the person isolated until medically released.

Winner! ^ tho I would add that it must be "publicly" reported as if reported internally, we'll never know what danger (potential or real) there was as it will be quashed due to "national security" :rolleyes: and that imho is just as bad as the FAM being allowed to work the flight after being stabbed with the syringe

Does the country have an involuntary yellow fever vaccine when unable to provide vaccination documentation and not willing to bribe the health officials there?

per this report:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...lagos-airport/

and this:
and before someone goes on the FoxNews or Daily Mail rant, there are other sources these were just the fastest to find any quote after I read it on Italian news sites.

Just reading about this stuff for something related to work: Average of 21 hours for ebola to incubate. Most of the really nasty things take at least that long. Depending on the timing of the flights it would/might have been perfectly safe to fly.

An FBI spokesman said Monday night, "out of an abundance of caution, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted an on-scene screening of the victim when United Flight 143 landed in Houston early Monday morning."

Not allowing the FAM to fly would have been the safe move, at least for a few days. I wonder if the PIC was consulted and agreed to let the FAM fly?

I still believe there were too many unknowns at the departing airport for this bizarre situation to allow him to board that flight.

Would the same scenario have played out if it had been a passenger or a crew member?

DEN

This is a horrible and scary situation for the FAM but I fail to see how his being on the plane could be a risk to the other passengers. As has been mentioned upthread, illnesses take a while to incubate before a person is contagious. Even so, most serious illnesses require more than casual contact to be contagious.

I wouldn't doubt it if someone did stab him with ebola in order to get the US to pay more attention to it, the idea being that if it affects the mainland, we will have to do something about it and that something may trickle down to west Africa.

I know a number of FAMs, and they go to Lagos pretty often, and i surely hope it wasn't any of them. Not that I wish such a thing on anyone, but I'm just looking out for my own people.