NBC affiliate KSHB (h/t NBC News) reports St. Luke's Health System nurse Nicole Harper has quite the claim, asserting she was forced to relieve herself in a cup mid-flight.
Harper states on Facebook that she was on United flight 6056 on April 10th. That's when the Kansas City resident explained to flight attendants that she had to use the restroom.
The request was purportedly met with a response for Harper to get back to her seat. While most people would simply do so and hold it, Harper suffers from an overactive bladder.
[CALLOUT]
A simple request was, thus, quite the emergency. In the end, Harper explains to KSHB that she had to do the unthinkable and pee in a cup back at her seat: "I said 'I'm going to need to use the restroom or I'm going to need a cup. [They] didn't understand that I don't have any control over the situation."
Harper claims that her request was met, not with admission to the bathroom, but rather a cup: "They handed me the cup which was about this big and I was like 'I'm going to need a second cup."
Harper explains how she felt at the time: "A completely humiliating situation. There was people all around - you know, strangers."
The mother of two was en route from Houston back home and explains the attendants may not have understood the gravity of the situation.
Still, she has reached out to United, which, for its part, is denying her version of the account.
KSHB cites a statement from the embattled airline: "Customer safety is always our first priority. Initial reports from the Mesa Airlines flight attendants indicate that Ms. Harper attempted to visit the lavatory on final descent and was instructed to remain seated with the seat belt fastened per FAA regulations. The situation as described by Ms. Harper and our employees is upsetting for all involved. We have reached out to Ms. Harper and our flying partner Mesa Airlines to better understand what occurred."
NBC News offers an important addendum from the statement: "At no point during the flight did flight attendants suggest that Ms. Harper use cups instead of the lavatory."
[READMORE]READ MORE: Bad Customer Service Bites Everyone Back [/READMORE]
That report states the timing is especially noteworthy as April 10 is just a day after Dr. David Dao was famously removed from his respective United flight.
That was just one dramatic turn for the airline, which also had to answer for a leggings controversy, a mea culpa mishap, a rabbit death's and, more recently, sending a French passenger to a completely different destination than the one she had intended.
Now United has to investigate whether its attendants dealt with a sensitive matter in a highly insensitive manner, something it has had an amazing amount of practice at doing recently.
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