Rushed woman bleeding in airport has disaster and flies 900 miles in the wrong direction
A woman who was supposed to be boarding a domestic US flight from Philadelphia to Florida ended up in Jamaica after a last-minute gate mix-up.
Beverly Ellis-Hebard regularly travels between her homes in Pennsylvania and Jacksonville and was waiting for a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia on November 6 last year.
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She nipped to the toilet after being assured that she had 20 minutes until boarding.
Due to recent back surgery, Beverly was unable to move around quickly and returned to find the flight almost boarded and the gate closing.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
“I fly once every six weeks. I picked Frontier flights because we flew so often,” she told ABC7.
As she went to board she put her bag into a luggage sizer after a staff member asked if it was the correct size, only to cut her arm removing it.
“I put it in and when I went to take it out my arm right here got all scraped up,” she added. “I was bleeding.”
She claims she was then rushed on board the wrong flight and it was only as she received medical treatment on the aircraft that the mix-up became apparent.
A staff member assisting her with the arm injury told Beverly she would soon be able to relax in Jamaica.
Beverly said: “I laughed. I said, ‘I would love to be going there but I have a beach where I live’.
“She said, ‘Look at me, this plane is going to Jamaica’, and I knew by the look on her face she wasn’t joking.”
(Image: ABC)
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At that point Beverly was informed of the late gate change and says she was told: “You’re entering a different country without a passport. That’s bad.”
The flight to Jamaica took twice as long as the two-hour journey to Florida would have done and Beverly says she wants an apology.
She said: “It should never have happened because I did not have a passport. The woman at the gate did not do her job.”
On arrival in Jamaica authorities allowed Beverly to wait in the air bridge until she caught a return flight to Philadelphia a few hours later.
Frontier Airlines said in a statement: “We sincerely regret that the customer was able to board the wrong flight and have extended our apologies.
“We have provided her with a refund and compensation as well as addressed the matter with airport personnel.”
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