A 25-year-old woman is suing JetBlue after she suffered severe second-and-third-degree burns on her butt after allegedly being burned by excruciating hot tea during a flight.
Michelle Lavin claims the incident happened on Labor Day weekend in 2014 when she was flying to visit her older sister during a five hour and 40 minute flight to Las Vegas from New York.
She says that a flight attendant did not secure the lid on the hot tea, which was ‘capable of causing disfiguring burns’ and wasn’t ‘fit for human consumption,’ she claims in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit, the New York Post reported.
Lavin was wearing her seat belt when the cup, ‘filled to the brim’ was brought to her by a flight attendant.
Michelle Lavin (above), a 25-year-old New York woman, is suing JetBlue after she suffered severe second-and-third-degree burns on her butt after allegedly being burned by excruciating hot tea during a flight
Lavin claims the incident happened on Labor Day weekend in 2014 when she was flying to visit her older sister during a five hour and 40 minute JetBlue flight (file above) to Las Vegas from New York
‘I remember it being very hot, even in my hands,’ she told the Post.
She explained that a man sitting near the rear of the plane started shouting at another passenger over her dog, causing everyone’s attention to shift upon them.
‘She just screamed. It was insanely loud, like a horror movie. I got very nervous and everybody turned around and it was frightening,’ Lavin recalled.
The 25-year-old accidentally bumped her tray table in the moment that she turned to look at the screaming passengers, knocking over the tea.
‘(It felt) like my pants were on fire,’ Lavin told the Post.
‘I screamed at the top of my lungs. The pain was unreal.
‘Every time I tried to stand, they said, ‘We need you to go sit down.’ I felt like I was being treated like a child.
Lavin (above) claims in court papers that a flight attendant did not secure the lid on the hot tea, which was ‘capable of causing disfiguring burns’ and wasn’t ‘fit for human consumption’
‘I was in excruciating pain and had tears running down my eyes and asked them to get me anything. Cream. Something!
‘They said, ‘We don’t have anything for burns on the plane.’ They were looking at me like I was insane.’
Lavin says two female flight attendants, including the woman who served her the hot tea, offered her ice and aspirin.
But Lavin claims they did not take her seriously, until she pulled her pants down.
‘They were horrified, and then they were much nicer. At that point I realized they knew they had a problem. They said, ‘This is very bad,’ ‘ she told the Post.
She filed the lawsuit three years after the incident because she claims JetBlue (file above) ‘treated her like dirt’, her attorney, Thomas Lavin
Lavin sent her parents a message about the incident and they called JetBlue who offered to have a stretcher waiting for her at the gate when the flight arrived.
But Lavin declined because she was ‘humiliated’ and instead went to a hospital’s emergency room with her sister.
She filed the lawsuit three years after the incident because she claims JetBlue ‘treated her like dirt’, her attorney, Thomas Lavin, told the Post.
The amount Lavin is suing the airline company for is unknown.
JetBlue could not be reached for comment.