Flights get canceled for all kinds of reasons—storms, maintenance issues, or someone refusing to wear shoes. But a woman pooping and puking so hard that a hazmat team has to be called? That’s a new one.
It happened last summer on a United flight from Newark to Indianapolis. Writer and actor Meghan Reinertsen had just landed from Portugal when she boarded her connection, already feeling queasy—thanks, she later realized, to an undercooked hamburger she had eaten the night before.
“Something is brewing. Something is happening that I am not prepared to deal with,” she recalled in a TikTok video that’s now been viewed nearly 20 million times.
Woman’s ‘Biohazard’ Diarrhea Cancels Flight
Thirty minutes into the flight, she made it to the bathroom just in time—and stayed there for the next 90. “I had more diarrhea than any human should ever have in their life,” she said, adding that the vomiting soon followed.
She screamed for help. The flight attendants gave her bags and permission to remain locked in the bathroom for the rest of the flight. When it was time to land, they told her to brace for impact. Literally.
The plane touched down. Everyone deboarded—except her. Reinertsen couldn’t walk, so they wheeled her off the plane. And then came the real kicker: the flight crew canceled the next flight scheduled for that plane. Why? Because she turned the plane into a biohazard.
“They didn’t know if I brought something back from Portugal. And I am a biohazard. I am patient zero,” she said.
I’ve had norovirus. I got it from oysters. Violent pooping while simultaneously puking is one of the most humbling, body-evacuating experiences imaginable. You cry. You sweat. You see the devil. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy—and definitely not at 30,000 feet in a metal tube with one tiny bathroom and 100 other people.
United later confirmed the incident, saying their crew “helped as much as they could.” Reinertsen believes it all started with an undercooked hamburger. The illness lingered for days.
The internet loves a bodily function story, but this one hits different—because it’s not just gross, it’s real. It’s your worst-case scenario with no escape button. Reinertsen didn’t just survive the flight. She became part of its legend.
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