Turned Positive Mid-air, the Woman Spent Five Hours in Toilet
NEW DELHI, Dec 31: A Michigan-based teacher in the United States had to spend five hours in toilet in a plane after testing Covid positive mid-air till the flight reached Iceland.
According to the media reports, the teacher Marisa Fotieo on her way from Michigan to Iceland along with some of her other family members felt uneasy halfway through the flight and went to the bathroom for a rapid self-test of Covid. She was panicked as the result turned positive and after consoled by some flight assistants decided to quarantine herself in the toilet for the remainder of the flight which was still five hours before it reached its destination.
Before the flight, Ms Fotieo told the media, she took two PCR tests and about five rapid tests, all of which came back negative. But about an hour and a half into the flight, Ms Fotieo started to feel a sore throat.
“The wheels started turning in my brain and I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to just go take a test.’ It was going to make me feel better,” Ms Fotieo said. “Immediately, it came back positive.” Ms Fotieo is fully vaccinated and has received the booster. She tests consistently since she works with an unvaccinated population. When she got her results in the airplane bathroom, over the Atlantic Ocean, she said she started to panic.
“The first flight attendant I ran into was Rocky. I was hysterical, I was crying,” Ms Fotieo said. “I was nervous for my family who I just had dinner with. I was nervous for the other people on the plane. I was nervous for myself.” The flight attendant Ms Fotieo ran into helped calm her down, the report added.
The flight attendant said she did what she could to try to rearrange seats so Ms Fotieo could be seated in a spot alone, but the flight was full. “When she came back and told me she couldn’t find enough seating, I opted to stay in the bathroom because I did not want to be around others on the flight,” Ms Fotieo said.
A note was then put on the bathroom door saying it was out of service, and that was Ms Fotieo’s new seat for the remainder of the flight. Once the plane touched down in Iceland, Ms Fotieo and her family were the last ones off the flight.
Since her brother and father didn’t have any symptoms, they were free to take their connecting flight to Switzerland. Ms Fotieo was given both a rapid and PCR test at the airport, both of which were positive, she said. She was then shuttled to a hotel where she began her 10 days of quarantine, the report added.
(Manas Dasgupta)
