SAVANNAH, Ga. () – A Delta Airlines flight departing from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport last month turned tense as a man nearly lost consciousness due to the conditions.
obtained new video of the incident, which put a passenger in the hospital after he said he passed out from extreme heat on the plane.
“It was one of the scariest moments of my life,” Arsenio Young, who suffered heat-related complications on the Delta flight in May said.
Young was headed to Atlanta when he boarded in Savannah on May 20.
However, upon boarding the plane, he said he immediately noticed a glaring problem.
“The first thing I asked the flight attendant was, ‘Could I get some water?’ She was aware of the heat. Everyone could feel it. They were both sweating profusely,” Young recalled. “A flight attendant mentioned the AC wasn’t working but assured us it would cool down once we were airborne.”
Though, that never happened. Young said the plane sat on the runway for almost an hour.
“We sat in the heat for fifty-five minutes,” he explained. “My body couldn’t take it any longer. I was drenched in sweat, my head was throbbing, and I felt utterly exhausted before eventually losing consciousness.”
In an incident report from the airport that Young shared with , a responding officer described the plane as “extremely hot” and characterized Young as “barely responsive and not talking.”
“I remember waking up to getting rushed to the hospital,” the passenger said.
Young said he was taken to Memorial hospital and told he’s still in the process of recovering.
However, after seeing the officer bodycam footage, he’s reliving the experience all over again.
“If something were to happen, that’d be the last thing my children see, me getting rolled out like that,” Young said. “That’s uncomfortable and dysfunctional for anybody to see. I was heartbroken.”
When asked whether Delta contacted him following the incident, Young said they had once, asking for documentation of his medical treatment.
“I believe actions more than I believe words, and they have not really followed up on any of their actions they said they were going to do,” he said. “That should’ve never happened, and Delta’s gotta do better.”
reached out to Delta Airlines for comment on this matter, but we are still awaiting a response.
