Sounds like this will become an upcoming episode of 'House'...
Posted on 11/16/2006 11:35:52 PM PST by MadIvan
A PASSENGER on an Air France flight from Bordeaux to Paris is suing the airline after allegedly being poisoned by a cup of coffee containing drain cleaner.
Marc Fredaine Niazaire, 30, a Congolese businessman who lives in Paris, has been in hospital since 15 October after taking only two sips of the coffee, which doctors believe contained a high concentration of a caustic chemical compound similar to that used to unblock drains.
Doctors say Mr Niazaire will suffer a 40 per cent incapacitation for the rest of his life as a result. In two months, surgeons will remove part of his stomach to reconstruct his oesophagus, an operation which carries a 5-8 per cent risk of death.
Mr Niazaire is to launch a legal suit against the airline and the chief steward next week for "poisoning and non-assistance to a person in danger" in relation to the flight on 15 October.
The businessman, who runs a clothing company, said: "After taking two sips, I felt a strong sensation of heat, my lips felt like they were going to explode, steam was rising to my ears and my eyes, I started drooling, my tongue swelled up."
He tried to make himself vomit, while the chief steward asked if a doctor was on board. According to Mr Niazaire, a German woman came forward, presented an identity card testifying she was a doctor and asked in French for the plane's first-aid supplies. However, the chief steward refused, as she "was a foreigner", Mr Niazaire said.
The doctor, highly indignant at being refused access to medical supplies, stayed with Mr Niazaire, gently tapping his face to keep him from slipping into unconsciousness. The steward who had served the coffee returned from notifying the control tower of an incident aboard and slapped the businessman hard across the face.
He wanted to check "whether my client was faking", said Mr Niazaire's lawyer, Didier Parr.
After landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris at 5:30pm, Mr Niazaire was transferred to the airport emergency centre, where he was given two injections and advised "to leave this centre, where we only treat small injuries".
When Mr Niazaire demanded to be transferred to hospital, "the nurses became absolutely furious", he said. "The idea was to get me to leave as soon as possible."
A transfer by ambulance was then proposed - at Mr Niazaire's expense.
He was finally taken to a hospital nearby with a letter from Dr Jerome Fillon, of the airport's emergency unit, saying: "The coffee, although it was hot, was not particularly boiling."
The following day the hospital diagnosed "a severe caustic oesophagitis stage 3". For weeks, Mr Niazaire took up to half an hour to swallow a sip of water and after three weeks his condition deteriorated so badly doctors were unable to insert a catheter.
He was transferred to a Paris hospital and underwent an operation on Monday, during which water and liquid food were injected.
"To explain this case of poisoning, we are reduced to estimations," said Mr Parr, who has ruled out suicide or attempted murder. "The most likely is an error in the packaging at the factory which manufactures the coffee cups," he said.
Airline staff simply tear back a metal tab inside the cup to reveal the coffee and add hot water, which could explain why only one cup was contaminated.
An airline spokesperson yesterday said that "50,000 shots of coffee are served each day on Air France flights. Up until today, we have received no complaint, nor any notification of any incident implicating the coffee served on board, notably on the flight mentioned. "An internal inquiry is under way, but we are wary about establishing a link between the consumption of the coffee and Mr Niazaire's malaise."
Mr Parr said he was angry over "Air France's silence" over the affair. "I learned of the initiative to call the company's doctor on 9 November because I was sickened by the cowardice of Air France, which has never come forward to assist one of its former passengers who left the flight on a stretcher.
"After being looked down upon, I got this response: 'Supposing that the facts are established, in this affair Air France is the first victim'." Mr Niazaire is unlikely to agree.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Damn. Draino to drink?
It sounds like it would be great with a cinnamon scone.
Several years ago, some French vintners were caught improving their wines with antifreeze.
"An airline spokesperson yesterday said that "50,000 shots of coffee are served each day on Air France flights. Up until today, we have received no complaint, nor any notification of any incident implicating the coffee served on board, notably on the flight mentioned. "An internal inquiry is under way, but we are wary about establishing a link between the consumption of the coffee and Mr Niazaire's malaise.""
"Airline staff simply tear back a metal tab inside the cup to reveal the coffee and add hot water, which could explain why only one cup was contaminated."
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out. The only person who could have possibly contaminated that coffee was the steward. And it sounds like he had issues with him prior to the incident. Possibly he just wanted to make the guy a bit uncomfortable and didn't realize how dangerous the chemical he chose was.
Am I the only one who is reminded of the scene in "Airplane", where the flight crew (and then some of the passengers) form a line to take turns slapping some sense into a hysterical passenger?
Or the steward was just psycho.
It is rather difficult to take two sips of concentrated caustic- the mouth irritation would be pretty strong on the first one. Besides, coffee is served hot, which would make the sips smaller and slower- allowing for lower ingestion amounts and more time to spit and wash one's mouth. Some info must be missing.
There are few things worse than a bad cup of coffee.
What kind of coffee is that to be serving anyway?
It sounds like a coffee version of "Oodles of Noodles."
Frank Zappa
1974
This whole thing sounds weird. I don't think we have facts here.
I hope Niazaire gets a billion francs out of the to$$ers. Poor bastard.
Regards, Ivan
Maybe not. If the packaging company also prepared doses of a coffee machine cleaner that contained sodium metasilicate or trisodium phosphate, and mislabelled it, it could have simply been bad luck.
I try to follow something a lawyer friend of mine says:
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
Sounds like this will become an upcoming episode of 'House'...
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