On Flights that 'Bite'

In the movies there are "Snakes on a Plane" but lately in real life there have been scorpions. The latest incident, according to this Associated Press report from Yahoo News was this past Sunday when a passenger on a Miami to Toronto American Airlines flight was bitten by a scorpion while the plane was in the air. Just a few days before that, on January 4th, another man was bitten twice by a stowaway scorpion on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Vermont. The airline officials theorize that the scorpion on the United flight might have sneaked aboard in Texas where that flight originated (it probably didn't even have to go through a metal detector.)

According to Dr. Stephen Leffler, director of emergency services at Burlington's Fletcher Allen Health Care hospital -- the hospital where the January 4th victim was treated, "scorpion stings are rarely fatal, except to babies or older people with health problems. For a healthy adult, a scorpion sting can mean numbness or shooting pain extending out from the sting, or flu-like symptoms."

Well scorpions on a plane may not be as dangerous as snakes on a plane but they sure are creepier!

Links:

Associated Press on Yahoo News: Scorpion stings Vermont man on airplane

Chicago Tribune: Airline reaches out to passenger stung by scorpion

From the blogosphere:

Digg,com: Scorpion On A Plane -- Passenger Gets Pantful Of Pain

The News Is NowPublic: Man OK after Airborne Scorpion Bite

And appropriately enough, a poem written by Ruth Yoshiko Okimoto and posted on Annika's Journal just today: "The Rattlesnake and Scorpion"

If you want to know more about scorpions visit DesertUSA (they even have pictures!)

Whymrhymer's fresh perspectives on today's news, as published here, also appear at My View from the Center and at the Blogger News Network