buckeyemom

Here is the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/03/14/spiked.juice.ap/index.html

Scarlett

Pretty awful isn't it?

Sarah

saw that article, shocking, I hope he gets a jail term if convicted.

Sarah

The only thing that is fishy about that article is that why did that woman wait 10 days before she turned over juice to authorities? Who does that if they think their child has been drugged by a stranger in public trust.

Patrick

I'd like to know the rest of the story. There's a lot here which doesn't make sense.

Faina

Don't they have smaller juice cans on the flights and open them so you can see it? And why would a mother wait till 10 days after the flight? And why would she save it? Imagine opened juice 10 days later! No wonder they found something in it, after 10 days ANY drink would get contaminated. I'm sure I'm not the only mother on this website, how long do you keep opened juice even refrigerated?

Big_Money_D

Sheesh. Flying certainly ain't what it used to be. Nowadays, who knows who is sitting next to you. Guy to the right is dropping zanax into your drink, guy to the left is trying to open up the emergency exit at 35k feet, guy in front is slipping a napkin with a nasty message to the FA while the guy behind is trying to ignite his shoe, all while riding in an airplane maintained by a bankrupt airline, jam packed with people who haven't eaten in hours. I'm getting air rage just thinking about it.

OliveOyl

Really...10 days? And what could happen to that juice in 10 days time, ahem. And even those of us who don't know how long it would take for traces of a drug to pass from one's body, would assume that all traces would be gone by 10 days. That means child could no longer be tested for the drug. Unless there is some other proof, think what a can of worms this would open if it actually went to trial. I can see future headlines now, "Obnoxious Diner Drugged with Powerful Laxative by Waitperson" as people jump on the old "slip and fall" bandwagon.

Just sign me "ex-Claims Adjuster". Seen too much to swallow anything hook line and sinker anymore.

sakath

Big Money D's right. Pass me my vodka and juice.

Patrick

Is the mother waiting now for Oprah to call? Or 48 hours? Or will she just go on Jerry Springer as the lesbian lover of the daughter of a Baptist minister who runs a trailer park with his transexual "wife" who is a porn star by day, and a gospel singer by night with a cousin who married a goat? In any case, it sounds to me like she's out to make her "fortune".

Bambi

If you sue the airline for something like this but they file for bankruptcy shortly thereafter, can the plaintiff still win money? Would you share your Xanax with someone too young to enjoy it?

buckeyemom

The article stated that the Flight Attendant offered apple juice to the Mother 3x before she accepted it. And after inspecting the FA's bags, they found all kinds of goodies in it. I don't get the 10 day wait either. If I suspected something was put in my child's drink, I would have contacted the police or airport security immediately after I got off the plane. I don't understand why the Mother waited. Maybe the Mother did it to get attention. What's it called Muchin Proxy Syndrome or something like that where the Mother actually makes the child sick to get attention?

Since no one actually saw the Flight Attnedant spike the juice, do they really have a case?

OliveOyl

Munchausen by Proxy. Very weird disease!!

doc_

I don't buy it for a second. If I thought someone drugged my kid,I would most likely punch them right away. They pour the juice right in front of you most of the time. Maybe the mother was the one taking the drugs and gave it to the kid by mistake,I'm sure its not the first time it has happened.

ParrotMom

According to a story on tv last night she noticed flecks in the juice...when they searched the atendants bag they found pills he had bought in Europe.. He no longer works for the airline. Why did she wait 10 days...and what did she do with the juice?
Munchausen Disease is usually associated with a parent who makes their child ill to gain sympathy.

Anonymous

I'm very curious about not only the 10 day wait, but also why/how she saved it in the first place. What *was* that juice doing between the time it was served and the time it was analyzed?

OTOH, it would be a mighty huge coincidence for the attendant to be arrested with quantities of the very drug that the juice had been adulterated with, *after* the juice was analyzed!

Perhaps the mom, being suspicious, froze the juice when she got home and it took 10 days for her to figure out exactly where to take it for analysis? After all, this is the mom of an apparently active toddler, just returning home from a big trip, and she'd have to do some reserarch before figuring out where to get her suspicions confirmed.

buckeyemom

Thanks OO. First cup of coffee hasn't kicked in yet. ;-) There is a case here in Ohio, don't know if it is Munchausen Disease or they did it for the money, where the Mother actually faked her child's leukemia going so far as shaving the girl's head etc. The whole thing was weird. The town where they lived took up a collection to pay for treatment. The Father said he had no reason not to believe his wife. Guess he never went to the doctor with them. Anyway, both parents are in jail now.

Scarlett

Last nights news on CNN said that the mother gave the bottle of juice to a doctor who had it tested.
Considering the fact that he was caught red handed with a bag full of Xanax and other pills, it is easier to believe this story.
It would have been some coincidence if someone made up this story then the flight attendant just happened to have hundreds of pills in his possession!

Dan

Xanax is a pretty common drug so the fact that the flight attendant had 100 Xanax pills doesn't mean that much to me.

What I want to know is this: did the kid fall asleep or not???

Cassandra

I think Anonymous may have the right spin. If it had been me, I would have first been a bit blitzed and either annoyed or embarrassed by the whole on-board incident. Then I would have been suspicious of the juice if it had "thingies" floating in it. But I also would have been very hesitant to allege something like this because it sounds so terribly nutty -- as everyone here has noted. I might well have held onto the juice while I made up my mind whether to make this outrageous claim, got up my courage, and then realized I had no clue what to do next. I'm not sure it would have taken 10 days, but perhaps her child was still sick when they got home and she had to deal with that first.

If the FA was someone who solved his own problems with pills, etc., and if he'd never had kids and found crying kids as annoying as so many Fodorites who fly a lot less than he does seem to, he might have dumbly thought he'd found a great solution.

OR: there could indeed be something else entirely going on here, but Munchausen-by-proxy more often manifests itself by having the kid actually get sick! In this case, it would have more classically presented by having Mom take a symptomatic kid to the airport doc or her own doc and having lots of blood tests, etc.