Deanne Wientge – Testimony of a former US flight attendant
‘In September 2010 I went off a plane by ambulance along with three other flight attendants after helping investigate the source of a strong chemical smell, as it filled the aircraft cabin. I was on my way to work as a flight attendant for a large North American airline when a smell I can only describe as a dirty sock mixed with chemical smell suddenly permeated the entire plane, literally causing me to jump up off the jump seat in alarm and exclaim to the flight attendant next to me, “What is that?” As I was flying non-revenue and as all seats were full, I was assigned to the jump seat in the rear of the plane.
‘The other flight attendant and I immediately checked the three rear lavatories for the source of the smell, and then asked the passengers in the rear seats if they could smell it. They said “Yes.”
‘We moved forward towards the front of the plane. I noted that there seemed to be pockets of the smell throughout the plane. As we approached the forward galley, the alarm bells in my head were skyrocketing, for I knew immediately something was dreadfully wrong. The smell seemed strongest there. Later I was to find out that the pilots could also detect the smell throughout the flight deck. (I have no knowledge of if the pilots developed any symptoms though, or whether they donned their oxygen masks during the flight.) The forward flight attendant told us, “I know this smell. I’ve been through it before. Put wet paper towels over your mouth and sit down”, which one of the flight attendants promptly did. While I never saw a visible mist, in hindsight I realized that the hues of colour were not what they should have been. Two things went through my head. Firstly, is this a chemical attack, is a passenger using chemicals? Secondly, I need to get to the rear of the aircraft and make sure it is not left unattended. You see, I was fairly new to flying and knew nothing of “air quality events” or what they smell like.
‘The other three flight attendants talked in the forward galley, trying to determine the source of the smell, as the fourth remained seated. Good thing that she did, as she ended up being the only one of us who was not incapacitated. By the time the other flight attendants returned to the rear of the aircraft, two of them were assisting the third who was having difficulty walking. To me she appeared to have an ash-grey pallor and her eyes had a distinctly yellowish cast that she had not previously had. We did our best to prepare for landing. The second flight attendant began vomiting repeatedly when she tried to do the landing announcements. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe and think. I remember a burning sensation in my chest. The three of us donned the oxygen masks on a three-port portable oxygen bottle. It was immediately easier to breathe. Watching the other two I feared they would not be upright much longer and said, “I’m calling the captain.”
The captain could not respond at that time as I believe we were still on the active taxiway and I believe he was on the phone with the forward flight attendant. When the captain responded that he could not answer, all I could think to do was sit sideways as we taxied in, watch the flight deck door and watch the four flight attendants and passengers to make sure all remained upright. I did not know that one of the forward flight attendants who had been up and about the cabin was also incapacitated to the point that she told the one sitting that she was unable to help with de-boarding and placed herself on oxygen. I could not complete the simple task of getting the gloves out of the bag on my lap and wondered why.
‘When we arrived at the gate the passengers were asked to remain seated so the paramedics could get to us. I do not understand medical jargon but was fairly certain that the paramedics commented to each other that the two flight attendants next to me had abnormal vitals. Both were later decontaminated at the hospital, though I was not despite having been next to them the whole time.
‘As we got to the front of the plane I remember that the few remaining passengers to deplane were complaining to the pilots about the smell. The paramedics were working on the lead flight attendant in the first class seats who looked very ill. Her eyes only half open, I heard her whisper to them haltingly “get … us … off … this … plane”, at which point the paramedics nodded in agreement and moved us to the jetbridge to continue their evaluation. The lead flight attendant later told me that at that point she had felt barely conscious and that that was not her first fume event, but her fourth! I tried to explain to the pilots as I got to them, “I don’t know what but something is very, very wrong on this plane. That was no ordinary odour.” I remember trying to tell the paramedics as I stood on the jetbridge and they worked on the other two who had been next to me on gurneys that I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest and I was shaking terribly.
The emergency room
‘At the ER, I was promptly placed in a room and left. Later I received an email from the other two who were next to me, telling me that in the ER, they had been put in decontamination showers immediately, had blood taken, blood gases and IV fluids. The e-mail from one of them says that they both exhibited a very delayed response when given a finger test by the ER doctor and that all of us had similar signs of confusion, dizziness, headache and nausea. All of us would go on to describe feeling shaky in the days to come, except for the one who had remained seated. The ambulance driver returned with my bags and asked why I had taken off my oxygen mask. I held up the end of the tube and said, “because it’s not hooked up”.
I waited alone for a long time. The supervisor who had met the plane arrived and asked the hospital where I was. They seemed to have trouble finding me, she said. I waited longer for them to find me a room. When the doctor finally saw me, my company supervisor was in the room taking notes. The doctor started by telling me that they would not be doing any medical tests on me because they would come back negative and there was nothing that it would show. He told me they had already checked the others. He then started asking me my medical history, at which point I looked over at my supervisor, knowing full well that it was a clear violation of HIPPA privacy laws for her to be in the room. Seeing that she was writing, I stopped answering the doctor’s questions and simply looked from him over to her. She left. The doctor gave me some discharge papers that read simply “Inhalation Exposure” and “Dizziness”.
Post event
‘The next few days I was extremely fatigued and unable to stay up long. I called in sick and slept for two days. After trying to stand for two hours on the second day, I had to lie back down and sleep. I was pale and had a severe headache. I had burning of my eyes, throat and sinuses which lasted for weeks. At that point I knew I needed a doctor, and called someone on our company assistance card to ask for help in finding one. I really don’t recall much of my conversation with her. I remember calling another flight attendant but I have no idea what I said to him or what he said back. My notes are all illegible. On Sunday I tried to go to church. I was too fatigued to stand up and sat down. I remained seated the entire service. I returned home to bed and sleep.
‘It was about that time that I learned of fume events, aerotoxic syndrome and also about a research project being done through the University of Washington. Knowing something bad had happened on that plane I was eager to get to the bottom of it, and more than happy to donate my blood for the research. On Monday, I drove down to the university where I gave blood for the study and learned more about the research from the biochemist. I remember being distinctly pale and fatigued as I walked from the parking lot into the university. It seemed to me that for days and weeks after that my skin and eyes had a sickly, yellow cast. I have a photo that to me still shows it. I also seemed to have great difficulty regulating body temperature and felt cold all of the time. Some days my palms had a purplish cast to them, and even now they are rarely warm to the touch. There were days I would take up to seven showers a day just to get warm. For probably a year after that I knew there was no way I could return to doing my volunteer Search & Rescue work as I got cold much too easily, and sitting in the wilderness waiting for dogs to find me as part of the training exercise was out of the question. I was also much too easily fatigued to trek up mountains.
‘Three days after my exposure I went to the walk-in clinic because of the burning in my chest, lungs and sinuses in addition to the extreme fatigue. The doctor’s diagnosis was toxic fume inhalation. He cleared me to fly and told me to keep my appointment I already had scheduled. I found a doctor who specialized in chemical inhalation in my area and I already had an appointment for the following Wednesday. When I arrived at the appointment, I was told that the doctor could not see me as they only take workman’s compensation cases. My workman’s compensation was initially denied and was not reversed until three months later by request of the company.
‘It was some time during the week after the event that the tremors began. Prior to the day of the event, I had never had tremors of the hands, arms or neck. As I recall they were at first just in my hands. Later they would develop in my arms, neck and come to involve other parts of my body at times. At times you can see my whole arm shaking and a purplish cast on one of my palms. A video was taken on 4 January, three months after my exposure. I consider this video as quite personal and it is with trepidation that I share it with you now, but for the others who are affected even worse than I and in hopes that no others should have to ever experience it.
‘After three more months of flying I was having difficulty walking too. I’m not sure when, how or why it started, but my left arm I held close to my body for many weeks after the event. Something about keeping it rigidly against my body prevented it from shaking. The more I relaxed my muscles at times the worse the tremors were, though I could be doing anything when the tremors began, such as pouring a soda or resting my head on someone’s arm while watching a movie.
‘The doctors having said I was cleared to fly, I had no choice but to return to flying or accumulate points and lose my job. My first flight back the following week put me on a trip with many short hops, requiring multiple boardings, de-boardings and announcements. Each service had to be done rapidly. I immediately noticed several things. I would reach for things and be unable to remember what I was reaching for. Though I knew the announcements by heart I could not remember them. I went to read them and found it very difficult. I could see the words on the page but not process them. It seemed to me a long delay before I could say each word. It improved over time but my cognitive processing is clearly not what it was, nor am I able to focus very well. Once an avid reader, I find it much harder to focus on what I read or write. My handwriting worsened. Even now I find myself having to stop to distinguish words such as “hear” for “here” and “no” for “know”, often finding that I wrote the wrong one. That was not something I had experienced prior to the event. In fact, in graduate school I had a 4.0 out of 4.0 grade point average because I could write well and was elected to the Jesuit National Honour Society based on a number of merits. I now havegreater difficulty with cognition and memory since the incident.
The doctors
‘While visiting my family I received a phone call from the workman’s compensation claims administrator informing me I was to see their doctor. I was later to find out that the doctor they sent me to was the former manager of occupational medicine programmes for one of, if not the, largest airline manufacturers in the world. I also learned that he had been the key expert witness for the defence in an aerotoxic case that was lost due to being blamed on mass hysteria. One lawyer I spoke with told me that that particular case was a travesty of justice. This doctor’s report on my condition includes the following statement: “She provides a story of other flight attendants being treated somewhat heroically with decontamination.”
‘According to one article I found recently, this same doctor that I was sent to is one of the nine doctors that sit on a panel of doctors who have formed a regional organization of occupational and environmental medicine working in conjunction with this state’s medical association, and in fact they share the same office and the same phone number. The doctor I was sent to is quoted as saying when asked what the association does that its members are on the side of science and not on the side of advocacy for certain types of exposure as legitimate medical claims. The article asserts that state records for the panel indicate that the registered agent for the organization is one of the largest law firms locally, with the airline being one of its biggest clients, and it defended the airline in a case filed by flight attendants who had become mysteriously ill from working inside the airline’s planes.
‘The doctor who sits on that panel went so far in his report as to say, “She was returned to work and continued to work for four months during which time she apparently did a lot of research on aerotoxic syndrome.” When I think back to the events that happened on that plane and the post effects, there is no shadow of a doubt in my head that I did not make up my illness or tremors, nor am I, nor was I ever, a malingerer or hypochondriac. Validation and scientific tests confirming and backing up our tests are crucial to peace of mind. I applaud the doctors, biochemists, and advocates around the world who are working hard to do just that. Aerotoxic syndrome as a result of exposure to chemicals in jet aircraft is both real and debilitating.
(from Aerotoxic Syndrome Aviation’s Darkest Secret by John Hoyte) back to previous page
‘In September 2010 I went off a plane by ambulance along with three other flight attendants after helping investigate the source of a strong chemical smell, as it filled the aircraft cabin. I was on my way to work as a flight attendant for a large North American airline when a smell I can only describe as a dirty sock mixed with chemical smell suddenly permeated the entire plane, literally causing me to jump up off the jump seat in alarm and exclaim to the flight attendant next to me, “What is that?” As I was flying non-revenue and as all seats were full, I was assigned to the jump seat in the rear of the plane.
‘The other flight attendant and I immediately checked the three rear lavatories for the source of the smell, and then asked the passengers in the rear seats if they could smell it. They said “Yes.”
‘We moved forward towards the front of the plane. I noted that there seemed to be pockets of the smell throughout the plane. As we approached the forward galley, the alarm bells in my head were skyrocketing, for I knew immediately something was dreadfully wrong. The smell seemed strongest there. Later I was to find out that the pilots could also detect the smell throughout the flight deck. (I have no knowledge of if the pilots developed any symptoms though, or whether they donned their oxygen masks during the flight.) The forward flight attendant told us, “I know this smell. I’ve been through it before. Put wet paper towels over your mouth and sit down”, which one of the flight attendants promptly did. While I never saw a visible mist, in hindsight I realized that the hues of colour were not what they should have been. Two things went through my head. Firstly, is this a chemical attack, is a passenger using chemicals? Secondly, I need to get to the rear of the aircraft and make sure it is not left unattended. You see, I was fairly new to flying and knew nothing of “air quality events” or what they smell like.
‘The other three flight attendants talked in the forward galley, trying to determine the source of the smell, as the fourth remained seated. Good thing that she did, as she ended up being the only one of us who was not incapacitated. By the time the other flight attendants returned to the rear of the aircraft, two of them were assisting the third who was having difficulty walking. To me she appeared to have an ash-grey pallor and her eyes had a distinctly yellowish cast that she had not previously had. We did our best to prepare for landing. The second flight attendant began vomiting repeatedly when she tried to do the landing announcements. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe and think. I remember a burning sensation in my chest. The three of us donned the oxygen masks on a three-port portable oxygen bottle. It was immediately easier to breathe. Watching the other two I feared they would not be upright much longer and said, “I’m calling the captain.”
The captain could not respond at that time as I believe we were still on the active taxiway and I believe he was on the phone with the forward flight attendant. When the captain responded that he could not answer, all I could think to do was sit sideways as we taxied in, watch the flight deck door and watch the four flight attendants and passengers to make sure all remained upright. I did not know that one of the forward flight attendants who had been up and about the cabin was also incapacitated to the point that she told the one sitting that she was unable to help with de-boarding and placed herself on oxygen. I could not complete the simple task of getting the gloves out of the bag on my lap and wondered why.
‘When we arrived at the gate the passengers were asked to remain seated so the paramedics could get to us. I do not understand medical jargon but was fairly certain that the paramedics commented to each other that the two flight attendants next to me had abnormal vitals. Both were later decontaminated at the hospital, though I was not despite having been next to them the whole time.
‘As we got to the front of the plane I remember that the few remaining passengers to deplane were complaining to the pilots about the smell. The paramedics were working on the lead flight attendant in the first class seats who looked very ill. Her eyes only half open, I heard her whisper to them haltingly “get … us … off … this … plane”, at which point the paramedics nodded in agreement and moved us to the jetbridge to continue their evaluation. The lead flight attendant later told me that at that point she had felt barely conscious and that that was not her first fume event, but her fourth! I tried to explain to the pilots as I got to them, “I don’t know what but something is very, very wrong on this plane. That was no ordinary odour.” I remember trying to tell the paramedics as I stood on the jetbridge and they worked on the other two who had been next to me on gurneys that I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest and I was shaking terribly.
The emergency room
‘At the ER, I was promptly placed in a room and left. Later I received an email from the other two who were next to me, telling me that in the ER, they had been put in decontamination showers immediately, had blood taken, blood gases and IV fluids. The e-mail from one of them says that they both exhibited a very delayed response when given a finger test by the ER doctor and that all of us had similar signs of confusion, dizziness, headache and nausea. All of us would go on to describe feeling shaky in the days to come, except for the one who had remained seated. The ambulance driver returned with my bags and asked why I had taken off my oxygen mask. I held up the end of the tube and said, “because it’s not hooked up”.
I waited alone for a long time. The supervisor who had met the plane arrived and asked the hospital where I was. They seemed to have trouble finding me, she said. I waited longer for them to find me a room. When the doctor finally saw me, my company supervisor was in the room taking notes. The doctor started by telling me that they would not be doing any medical tests on me because they would come back negative and there was nothing that it would show. He told me they had already checked the others. He then started asking me my medical history, at which point I looked over at my supervisor, knowing full well that it was a clear violation of HIPPA privacy laws for her to be in the room. Seeing that she was writing, I stopped answering the doctor’s questions and simply looked from him over to her. She left. The doctor gave me some discharge papers that read simply “Inhalation Exposure” and “Dizziness”.
Post event
‘The next few days I was extremely fatigued and unable to stay up long. I called in sick and slept for two days. After trying to stand for two hours on the second day, I had to lie back down and sleep. I was pale and had a severe headache. I had burning of my eyes, throat and sinuses which lasted for weeks. At that point I knew I needed a doctor, and called someone on our company assistance card to ask for help in finding one. I really don’t recall much of my conversation with her. I remember calling another flight attendant but I have no idea what I said to him or what he said back. My notes are all illegible. On Sunday I tried to go to church. I was too fatigued to stand up and sat down. I remained seated the entire service. I returned home to bed and sleep.
‘It was about that time that I learned of fume events, aerotoxic syndrome and also about a research project being done through the University of Washington. Knowing something bad had happened on that plane I was eager to get to the bottom of it, and more than happy to donate my blood for the research. On Monday, I drove down to the university where I gave blood for the study and learned more about the research from the biochemist. I remember being distinctly pale and fatigued as I walked from the parking lot into the university. It seemed to me that for days and weeks after that my skin and eyes had a sickly, yellow cast. I have a photo that to me still shows it. I also seemed to have great difficulty regulating body temperature and felt cold all of the time. Some days my palms had a purplish cast to them, and even now they are rarely warm to the touch. There were days I would take up to seven showers a day just to get warm. For probably a year after that I knew there was no way I could return to doing my volunteer Search & Rescue work as I got cold much too easily, and sitting in the wilderness waiting for dogs to find me as part of the training exercise was out of the question. I was also much too easily fatigued to trek up mountains.
‘Three days after my exposure I went to the walk-in clinic because of the burning in my chest, lungs and sinuses in addition to the extreme fatigue. The doctor’s diagnosis was toxic fume inhalation. He cleared me to fly and told me to keep my appointment I already had scheduled. I found a doctor who specialized in chemical inhalation in my area and I already had an appointment for the following Wednesday. When I arrived at the appointment, I was told that the doctor could not see me as they only take workman’s compensation cases. My workman’s compensation was initially denied and was not reversed until three months later by request of the company.
‘It was some time during the week after the event that the tremors began. Prior to the day of the event, I had never had tremors of the hands, arms or neck. As I recall they were at first just in my hands. Later they would develop in my arms, neck and come to involve other parts of my body at times. At times you can see my whole arm shaking and a purplish cast on one of my palms. A video was taken on 4 January, three months after my exposure. I consider this video as quite personal and it is with trepidation that I share it with you now, but for the others who are affected even worse than I and in hopes that no others should have to ever experience it.
‘After three more months of flying I was having difficulty walking too. I’m not sure when, how or why it started, but my left arm I held close to my body for many weeks after the event. Something about keeping it rigidly against my body prevented it from shaking. The more I relaxed my muscles at times the worse the tremors were, though I could be doing anything when the tremors began, such as pouring a soda or resting my head on someone’s arm while watching a movie.
‘The doctors having said I was cleared to fly, I had no choice but to return to flying or accumulate points and lose my job. My first flight back the following week put me on a trip with many short hops, requiring multiple boardings, de-boardings and announcements. Each service had to be done rapidly. I immediately noticed several things. I would reach for things and be unable to remember what I was reaching for. Though I knew the announcements by heart I could not remember them. I went to read them and found it very difficult. I could see the words on the page but not process them. It seemed to me a long delay before I could say each word. It improved over time but my cognitive processing is clearly not what it was, nor am I able to focus very well. Once an avid reader, I find it much harder to focus on what I read or write. My handwriting worsened. Even now I find myself having to stop to distinguish words such as “hear” for “here” and “no” for “know”, often finding that I wrote the wrong one. That was not something I had experienced prior to the event. In fact, in graduate school I had a 4.0 out of 4.0 grade point average because I could write well and was elected to the Jesuit National Honour Society based on a number of merits. I now havegreater difficulty with cognition and memory since the incident.
The doctors
‘While visiting my family I received a phone call from the workman’s compensation claims administrator informing me I was to see their doctor. I was later to find out that the doctor they sent me to was the former manager of occupational medicine programmes for one of, if not the, largest airline manufacturers in the world. I also learned that he had been the key expert witness for the defence in an aerotoxic case that was lost due to being blamed on mass hysteria. One lawyer I spoke with told me that that particular case was a travesty of justice. This doctor’s report on my condition includes the following statement: “She provides a story of other flight attendants being treated somewhat heroically with decontamination.”
‘According to one article I found recently, this same doctor that I was sent to is one of the nine doctors that sit on a panel of doctors who have formed a regional organization of occupational and environmental medicine working in conjunction with this state’s medical association, and in fact they share the same office and the same phone number. The doctor I was sent to is quoted as saying when asked what the association does that its members are on the side of science and not on the side of advocacy for certain types of exposure as legitimate medical claims. The article asserts that state records for the panel indicate that the registered agent for the organization is one of the largest law firms locally, with the airline being one of its biggest clients, and it defended the airline in a case filed by flight attendants who had become mysteriously ill from working inside the airline’s planes.
‘The doctor who sits on that panel went so far in his report as to say, “She was returned to work and continued to work for four months during which time she apparently did a lot of research on aerotoxic syndrome.” When I think back to the events that happened on that plane and the post effects, there is no shadow of a doubt in my head that I did not make up my illness or tremors, nor am I, nor was I ever, a malingerer or hypochondriac. Validation and scientific tests confirming and backing up our tests are crucial to peace of mind. I applaud the doctors, biochemists, and advocates around the world who are working hard to do just that. Aerotoxic syndrome as a result of exposure to chemicals in jet aircraft is both real and debilitating.
(from Aerotoxic Syndrome Aviation’s Darkest Secret by John Hoyte) back to previous page
