Plane passenger throws up 30 times after eating ‘smelly’ meal on a six-hour flight

Cameron Callaghan, 27, recently revealed his experience on the “flight from hell” when he vomited 30 times after eating a “smelly” inflight meal on an Etihad Airways aircraft.

“It ruined the first few days of my holiday,” Callaghan told Kennedy News.

The British traveler was on a six-hour connecting flight from Manchester, UK, to Abu Dhabi, UAE, on his way to Bangkok, Thailand, when he claims to have gotten food poisoning from a “tomato, cheesy, chicken pasta” he was served.

Callaghan said he still ate the food even though it had a foul stench because his flight had been delayed five hours and all he’d consumed before was an egg sandwich.

“It did smell a bit weird but all plane food kind of does,” he told the outlet.

It wasn’t until 20 minutes after he’d consumed the dish that his stomach started bothering him.

Callaghan immediately went to the bathroom to try and relieve his gastrointestinal issues, but they only got worse from there.

“I had diarrhea twice and 10 minutes after that I was just constantly throwing up for the duration of the flight,” he confessed.

“I was going to the toilet every five minutes, laying in the fetal position and towards the end of the flight, I’d emptied my body so much that I couldn’t even stand up,” Callaghan continued, noting that he was forced to stay in the back of the plane with a flight attendant so they could keep the bathroom available for him.

The traveler said he felt “embarrassed” when others on board tried to use the restroom.

After six hours in the air, the flight landed. However, Callaghan was feeling extremely weak, and he could barely stand.

“They had to get a wheelchair and they wheeled me to the medical room in Abu Dhabi’s airport,” he said.

Once he was under the careful watch of a doctor, Callaghan was placed on an IV with an anti-nausea drip.

And though his symptoms started to subside, he wasn’t 100 percent until a few days after he finally arrived in Bangkok.

Callaghan said: “The next two or three days after arriving in Bangkok I was just bed-bound.

“I believe the food had been sitting out since the original time the plane was supposed to take off and not been stored properly,” he went on to say, adding that he felt completely fine for hours after eating the egg sandwich in the airport.

Callaghan also pointed out that he hadn’t eaten anything the night before his January 6 flight because he had anxiety.

In a statement sent to the Post, a spokesperson for Etihad Airlines said: “We take all such matters very seriously and investigate thoroughly. Our food on this flight, as with all our flights, was prepared and stored under strict temperature-controlled conditions to ensure safety and quality.

“We did not receive any reports of illness from other passengers on this flight who were served the same meal. Our first priority is always the safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew,” the statement continued.

The Independent has contacted Etihad Airlines for a comment.