A United Airlines passenger who had ‘biohazard diarrhea’ which caused flight cancelations blamed an undercooked hamburger for the drama.
Actress Meghan Reinertsen, 29, from Atlanta, Georgia, said she spent 90 minutes locked inside the lavatory during the July 2024 flight from Newark to Indianapolis.
She went public about the ordeal via TikTok one month ago, and she gave more details during an interview with the Daily Mail on Thursday.
Reinertsen revealed that the key mistake which triggered the horrifying explosion was taking a few bites of a bloody patty, which gave her violent food poisoning.
‘I had eaten part of an undercooked burger hours before I left to get back to Indiana,’ she said.
‘I only took a couple of bites because I was like, “oof, that’s really undercooked”.’
Reinertsen said she bought the burger at the resort where she had been staying as a nanny for a family who were on vacation at the time.
‘I don’t want to out the resort,’ she said. ‘It was a really nice hotel.’
United Airlines passenger Meghan Reinertsen (pictured) who had ‘biohazard diarrhea’ on a flight to Indianapolis has spoken to the Daily Mail about her nightmare experience
Reinertsen revealed that the key mistake which triggered the horrifying explosion was taking a few bites of an undercooked burger, which gave her violent food poisoning (file photo)
Reinertsen said the first signs something wasn’t right came while she was strolling through the airport before her final connection, a two-hour flight.
‘My stomach was rumbling,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I was like, “this is… different”.
‘But it really wasn’t until I got on the second flight that the pain kicked in. I was like, “this is not good”.
In her TikTok video about the nightmare experience, she detailed how within 30 minutes into her flight, she was drenched in sweat, crying and doubled over in pain.
Fearing she’d end up like the infamous Delta passenger who soiled herself mid-flight, Reinertsen made it to the bathroom just in time.
‘For the next 20 minutes I had more diarrhea than any human should ever have in their life,’ she said, adding that she soon started vomiting as well.
Reinertsen recalled panicking in the tiny, claustrophobic area before she had the presence of mind to scream for help from the flight attendants, who gave her bags.
The flight crew allowed her to stay in the bathroom for the entire flight. They even got special clearance from the pilot to allow her to remain where she was for landing.
The flight crew allowed Reinertsen to stay in the bathroom for the entire flight. They even got special clearance from the pilot to allow her to remain where she was for landing
The 29-year-old actress (pictured above) from Atlanta, Georgia, said she spent an hour and a half locked inside the lavatory during the July 2024 flight from Newark to Indianapolis
Reinertsen said she couldn’t make it back to her seat in her condition, which prompted the flight attendant to tell her through the door to ‘brace for impact’.
Once they were on the ground, she was told that the next flight with that plane had been canceled.
‘A flight attendant comes over and says, “Everybody’s off the plane now, go ahead and take your time and come out when you can, the next flight has been cancelled,”‘ Reinertsen said. ‘In the moment, I’m not thinking it is because of me.’
The flight attendant then told her that a hazmat team would be coming to clean up her mess.
‘Got it, so you canceled that flight because of me…because you don’t know if I brought something back from Portugal. And I am a biohazard. I am patient zero,’ she said.
She even had to be put in a wheelchair when she was ready to disembark because she couldn’t walk.
Reflecting on the ordeal one year later, she told the Daily Mail she can ‘absolutely’ see the humorous side.
‘Is this a funny story in hindsight? One hundred percent. This is so something that would happen to me,’ Reinertsen said.
‘Even in the midst of the pain, I was like, “of course this would happen to me”. I didn’t really have time to be embarrassed. I was just like, “oh this sucks”.
‘People (on the plane) aren’t monsters and they knew what was going on.’
‘We choose what we decide to be embarrassed by and this simply wasn’t something I was embarrassed about,’ she added.
‘We choose what we decide to be embarrassed by and this simply wasn’t something I was embarrassed about,’ Reinertsen (pictured) told the Daily Mail of her nightmare plane journey
The United flight crew allowed Reinertsen to stay in the bathroom for the entire flight. They even got special clearance from the pilot to allow her to remain where she was for landing
In fact, she even said she felt ‘uplifted’ by the response she got after going public about the incident.
‘I have had an egregious amount of people reach out to me with their own plane horror stories, which I love to hear,’ Reinertsen told the Daily Mail.
‘I’m happy that I have been able to make people feel better about their own situations.
‘That’s all I have ever wanted to do with my writing and entertainment. It’s been really uplifting and encouraging for me.’
Reinertsen said her TikTok video, which was viewed more than 20 million times, also prompted a flood of new followers. She said her following rose from 53 friends to 93,000 people around the world.
However, she said despite the ‘overwhelmingly positive response’, she was also heavily criticized by trolls.
‘There are obviously people who are nitpicking my every move and decision,’ she said.
‘I only had two hours to get to my flight, I didn’t have time to really think about it.
‘I didn’t have a moment to stop and make a decision about it because I was just trying to make my flight.’
Reinertsen also dispelled rumors that she ‘destroyed’ the plane bathroom.
‘That simply wasn’t the case,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I successfully got all of my bodily fluids into the appropriate place. My clothes were fine. People have been asking about that.’
