A Spirit Airlines passenger suffered a major brain aneurysm after he slipped on a urine-soaked bathroom floor during a flight from Palm Beach, Florida, to LaGuardia last March, a lawsuit accusing the embattled ultra-low-cost of negligence claims.
Jacky Johns from Staten Island, New York State, says he has been left with constant headaches, dizziness, and pain following the ‘traumatic’ head injury he suffered when he flew with Spirit on March 1, 2024.
The lawsuit alleges that when Jacky went to use the restroom during the flight, he noticed that the floor was slippery and wet from a build-up of urine, but what made the conditions inside the bathroom even more dangerous was the door, which required ‘excessive’ force to open.
As Jacky struggled to open the door in order to return to his seat, he slipped on the urine and fell backward, hitting his head against the side of the toilet bowl.
Jacky hit his head with such force that he temporarily lost consciousness, and flight attendants had to be called to give him emergency First Aid before he could be taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital after the airplane had landed at LaGuardia.
Doctors diagnosed Jacky with concussion, and he was allowed to go home, but in the days following the accident, his condition started to deteriorate.
On March 6, 2024, Jacky abruptly fainted in front of his daughter and grandchildren and had to be rushed to the Emergency Room at Stony Brook University Hospital, where medical staff ordered a CT scan to get to the bottom of what was causing Jacky’s condition to worsen.
The CT scan revealed that the bump to his head from falling over in the urine had caused a supraclinoid internal carotid artery aneurysm – a potentially very serious medical condition that could lead to a stroke or even bleeding in the brain.
In his lawsuit against Spirit, which was filed in a New York district court earlier this month, Jacky accuses the airline of being the “actual and proximate” cause of his traumatic head injury because it had failed to keep the restroom floor clean and dry, as well as failing to maintain the toilet door.
Jacky says he continues to suffer from “severe and intense emotional distress” as a result of what occurred during the flight – not least, the fact that what occurred to him was so embarrassing.
The lawsuit seeks “incidental and consequential damages” from Spirit, and while Jacky’s attorneys have not stated a compensation amount they are after, they believe that it should be in excess of $75,000.
As far as legal issues facing Spirit at the moment, this lawsuit pales in comparison to the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process that the airline is currently going through.
Late last year, Spirit managed to convince bondholders to back a pre-packaged Chapter 11 process that will let the beleaguered carrier reorganize its finances while continuing to fly. If all goes to plan, Spirit could exit the Chapter 11 process in the next few months, although the long-term future of the airline remains uncertain.
Mateusz Maszczynski honed his skills as an international flight attendant at the most prominent airline in the Middle East and has been flying ever since... most recently for a well known European airline. Matt is passionate about the aviation industry and has become an expert in passenger experience and human-centric stories. Always keeping an ear close to the ground, Matt's industry insights, analysis and news coverage is frequently relied upon by some of the biggest names in journalism.