It’s been a while since I’ve written a “Travel Tale”, and something happened on my flight yesterday that I wanted to share. The woman who had the seat across the aisle from me was hit in the head by a laptop that fell out of an overhead bin. What does this have to do with the standards game? Not much, really, except that a lot of us fly to attend standards meetings. If this tale helps prevent another accident, it will have served its purpose.

As everyone was getting settled pre-flight – finding seats, stowing luggage, getting out reading material – the gentleman in front of me put his laptop in the overhead bin across the aisle. The bin was then full, so he closed and latched it. A minute later, someone looking for overhead space opened it. The petite woman standing in the aisle next to me cried out in pain and anger as the laptop slid out and smacked her on the top of the head!

She immediately sat in her seat, dry-swallowed some Tylenol, and worked to maintain her composure. (”How can this happen in First Class?!” did escape her lips – as if accidents are only allowed to happen in coach). The flight attendants brought her water and checked on her every few minutes. Shortly, she began to complain of a severe headache on one side of her face, neck pain, and nausea. The flight attendants asked over the intercom if there was a medical doctor on board.

Fortunately, a doctor was sitting right in front of the injured woman, and he crouched in the aisle next to me to examine her. I heard him ask her exactly what happened, where she felt pain, and about any other symptoms she was experienced. She said she had actually been hit twice in the head upon boarding the plane. The laptop was the second time – the first was by an umbrella falling out of a different bin over her husband’s seat!

The doctor borrowed my penlight to check her pupils’ reaction. He talked to her about concussion and possible epidural bleeding and urged her to stay awake on the 2-hour flight. (I’ve always wondered why a person shouldn’t sleep if they’ve sustained a blow to the head.) The doctor said he wanted to monitor her symptoms throughout the flight, but if she slept it could mask something bad happening. He said if things got a lot worse, the pilot would land the plane at the nearest airport with adjacent medical facilities.

There’s more to the story, but since I’m not writing a novel, suffice it to say that she didn’t get worse and paramedics cleared her to get off the plane before any of the other passengers.

It seems to me this accident was the result of a design flaw. The overhead bins were flat (not curved like most I’ve seen) and pulled down at an angle from the ceiling of the plane. Any items stacked on top of each other would be tilted down and follow the law of gravity. Ouch.

So, my fellow air travelers, when you hear the flight attendant say, “Items may shift during flight”, you might want to hear, “Items have shifted during flight – watch your head!”

Safe travels!

P.S. I wish that as the plane is landing, the flight attendants wouldn’t say “we’re making our final approach”. It sounds so… well… final.