CHUM (Toronto, Ontario) 10 January 07 Another Scorpion Stings Another Passenger On Board An Aircraft
Once is bizarre.
Twice in the same week is stranger than fiction.
Just days after we first told you about a man being bitten by a scorpion on a plane, it's happened again.
The first instance involved a passenger who didn't know the critter had hidden out in his backpack on a flight back to Toronto.
But this latest incident happened on a United Airlines plane heading from Chicago to Vermont.
David Sullivan, a 46-year-old builder, was coming home from a trip to visit family in San Francisco and had just awakened from a nap on the flight when he noticed an odd sensation in his leg above the knee.
"My right leg felt like it was asleep, but that was isolated to one spot, and it felt like it was being jabbed with a sharp piece of plastic or something," he recalls.
But unlike the Canadian victim, this passenger was hit by the same arachnid twice.
He felt another twinge after he disembarked and was waiting for his luggage to appear. Finally deciding there was something wrong, Sullivan rolled up his pant leg and the creepy crawler fell out and began scuttling across the terminal floor.
"It felt like a shock, a tingly thing. Someone screamed, 'It's a scorpion,'" Sullivan shudders.
The creature was killed by one of the other travellers and Sullivan immediately went to seek medical attention.
This latest incident is the stuff of nightmares. The victim figures the scorpion bit him on the right leg, crawled up through his crotch and then went down his left side before his exit from the plane caused him to sting a second time.
His family was appalled at what happened but were trying to take it with humour.
"The airlines tell you you can't bring water or shampoo on a plane," wife Helena Sullivan observes. "All the security we go through" apparently didn't apply to the scorpion.
Airline officials believe the creature came onboard during a stop in Texas and have promised to investigate.
Sullivan was checked out and is O.K. but the veteran flyer knows it could have been worse. "I've travelled enough in tropical climates, Argentina, South America, to know about the risks from insects and animals and microorganisms ... It's a dangerous world out there."
And no, he hasn't seen "Snakes on a Plane." Yet.
"I'm pretty selective about what I see," he muses. "Maybe I have to see it now."
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_6778.aspx
CHUM (Toronto, Ontario) 08 January 07 Scorpion Makes It Onto Toronto-Bound Flight
You've probably heard of the movie Snakes On A Plane.
Well, passengers aboard a Toronto-bound jet experienced a similarly frightening mid-air experience this weekend when a scorpion made it onto an American Airlines flight from Costa Rica to Toronto and ending up biting a man.
The flight made its scheduled stopover in Miami Sunday and had taken off again for Toronto when the critter made its unwanted appearance.
After hiding undetected in the man's carry-on bag, the scorpion decided to slip out during the flight, crawling up his oblivious victim's pant leg. He wasn't oblivious for long, however. He reached a unique level of awareness when the poisonous stinger painfully sunk into his skin and a quiet flight took on an ominous, creepy tone.
The man did manage to kill the scorpion after it bit him. But the fear of more carnage wasn't totally assuaged.
The incident caused an hour-long delay at Pearson International Airport as officials looked to see if any others had gotten loose.
After the plane landed the traveller was treated at Etobicoke General and released.
Animal control officers identified the scorpion as a non-lethal species.
According to Zoo Keeper Doug Chessell, the man was lucky he didn't encounter a more potent version of the vilified creature.
"Some scorpions do have a lethal injection," he said. "A lot of it depends on the person and how they react to the venom."
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_6710.aspx
