A flight flying into London Heathrow airport from Singapore was thrown into utter chaos when two of its passengers, 26-year-old Julia Walentin and her friend Dina Oetterli boarded became ill and tried their hand at getting a business-class seat upgrade to make themselves more comfortable.
As it turns out, the girls had come to their flight after a night of extremely-heavy drinking on their last day of summer vacation, before heading back to school in the UK. Julia, who was feeling particularly bad (headaches, nausea, the works) asked a flight attendant if she had some paracetamol for her pain. She also checked with her to see if there was any room in business class so that she could lie down comfortably and sleep off her terrible hangover.
Unfortunately for the girls, their business-class dreams were quickly extinguished when the entire flight crew went into full-on panic that they were infected with the notorious COVID-19 virus. That’s when the flight turned into an absolute nightmare.
Instantly, all of the passengers around the girls were moved away, and the area was cleared. They were told to put on masks, lie down, and keep away from everyone else on the plane. Then, a flight attendant came by every 30 minutes to take their temperature for the rest of the 14-hour flight.
Julia and her friend tried desperately to explain to the crew that they “had a really heavy night of drinking. [they] were up until 2am.” Julia went on to say that she “had been throwing up in the hotel because [she] hadn’t eaten and just had way too much [to drink]”. The girls had to be at the airport only 4 hours later, so they barely had time to sleep it all off.
Despite their pleas, the crew continued to monitor their temperatures and kept them in strict conditions until the end of the flight. Unfortunately, things then got much worse…
The rest of the panicked passengers on the flight were free to leave after signing some health waivers, but the girls were stuck on the plane. From the window, they saw a team of doctors and firemen, covered head-to-toe in hazmat gear, rushing to the aircraft. After getting to the ground, the girls were whisked off to a secluded location and quizzed for hours about their symptoms and whereabouts.
They were then taken to a separated area of the airport, which was still under construction, and forced to isolate for 14-days. They were also told to keep their location a secret and “not to open [their] blinds and not to tell [their] family and friends too much. Just to say that [they] were fine and would be home soon.”
It was a surreal ordeal for the college students, who would order daily room service, complete with bottles of Corona beer to keep themselves sane during the isolation. The doctors instructed wait staff to “knock three times” and the girls “had to wait for one minute before opening the door.” There was absolutely nobody else around anywhere in the area. They claim that “It was like a ghost town in there and all the medics were wearing spacesuits.”
