Family Kicked Off Flight After 3-Year-Old Vomited: Report

LOS ANGELES, CA — Virgin America kicked a family off an LAX-bound flight after their 3-year-old son threw up before takeoff, CBS Los Angeles reported. The Kohan family was set to fly from Hawaii to Los Angeles over the weekend when their 3-year-old son experienced motion sickness, his mother, Yvette Kohan, told the station. The boy had gotten car sick on the ride to the airport, she said.

After the boy threw up in the cabin, a flight attendant, who Kohan said was “very rude,” told the family they had to leave the plane because he was sick.

“How does someone throwing up automatically mean they get off the plane?” Kohan told CBS. “What if I was pregnant and I had morning sickness and I was throwing up? Would you kick me off? They said yes.”

The flight crew told the family they would need something called a “fit to fly” certificate from a doctor in order for their son to be cleared for the flight. The Kohans asked the crew to see documents explaining the rules of the airline, but they told CBS they received nothing.

After an hour of arguing with airline personnel, the Kohans say they took the boy to the nearest hospital, where a doctor cleared him to fly.

The family flew back to California on United Airlines, according to the report. Virgin refunded their tickets and offered them an additional $800, which they say they refused.

Virgin told Patch in a statement: “Since we aren’t medical experts, our employees were acting in the best interest of our young guest, whose health and safety is our top concern. We use MedLink’s on-call physicians to assist in situations like these. We prefer that any medical concerns are identified on the ground, before a long trans-oceanic flight, since there are no good options to divert for passenger medical emergencies. In this case, the MedLink physician advised that our young guest be symptom free for two hours before flying. We feel terrible that the family wasn’t able to depart on their original flight and have refunded their tickets.”

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Photo credit: AP Photo/Alastair Grant