Autistic Child/Mom Kicked Off Plane

Kid Lester · #1 06-25-2008, 12:07 PM

CARY, N.C. - June 25, 2008 -- The mother told her story to 6abc's sister station in North Carolina.

An American Eagle flight taxiing to an RDU runway was turned around Monday, but not because of a terrorist threat.
The crew was kicking an autistic Cary toddler and his mother off the plane.

As the American Eagle flight headed down the taxiway, two-and-a-half-year-old Jarett Farrell wasn't a happy traveler.
His mother says she was doing all she could to calm the autistic boy, but got no sympathy from the flight crew.

"If they just would have been a little more understanding I think that none of this would have been a problem," Mother, Janice Farrell said.
But it became a big problem for everyone on the plane. Farrell says that's because the flight attendant was indignant.

"She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight'. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him," Farrell said.

One of the pilots came back to the cabin with a stern warning and Farrell says the frustration level escalated.

She says Jarrett picked up on that and things only got worse.

"He just melted down. He saw me getting upset. He was upset. He was on the floor rolling around," she said.

The pilot returned to the cockpit, turned the plane around and headed back to the terminal.

"The pilot made an announcement that there was a woman and her child on the plane and the child is uncontrollable. And at that point I just broke down," Farrell said.

Farrell says when she got back to her home in Cary she called her husband and they decided that she should call American Airlines corporate. She says a company representative apologized and said the incident should never have happened.

But that's not what American Airlines told Eyewitness News.

A spokesman in Dallas says Jarret was pitching a "raging fit".
And that Janice, who was in a front-row seat, refused to allow her bag to be placed in an overhead compartment, even though there was no under seat stowage.

He says that with a "passenger not complying with FAA regulations, this was the right decision."

Farrell says even though her travel bag had things to calm Jarrett, she did indeed give it to the flight attendant.

"She took my bag and put it up top," Farrell said.

Farrell is taking the train to see family in New Jersey and she and her husband say they will never fly American again.

(Copyright ©2008 WTVD-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

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First of all, I've been on MANY flights with screaming kids. That never seemed to phase the airlines before. What's different about this?

Secondly, I'd really like to hear from a non-biased passenger about this.

Other reports say the child was rolling around on the floor...did Mom get pissy over the overhead bag or just try to explain why she needed it for her son?

This sounds like a battle of wills, and I suspect the flight attendants were not qualified to deal with this.

Pythoness · #2 06-25-2008, 12:14 PM

Autistic kids will indeed throw monumental tantrums. It's known as "meltdown" because truthfully, that is what it is.

It may look to any observer like the kid is undisciplined and a brat, but really, they very frequently have trouble communicating, get frustrated, and pitch these fits that I think also help them relieve being overstimulated or stressed.

Aidyn will *throw* himself on the floor and *bash* his head into the floor. Repeatedly. Usually while screaming the most high pitched squeal you could imagine coming from human vocal cords. It's really embarassing, it's really frustrating, and the only way to stop it is to just ignore him. Truthfully. The more someone tries to calm him down or interact with him, the more he just intensifies. Best thing to do: Take him somewhere quiet, where no one else is, and just let him go until he's done.

Kid Lester · #3 06-25-2008, 12:15 PM

What would you do if you had to take a flight to try to minimize the issue, if anything?

Pythoness · #4 06-25-2008, 12:23 PM

I'd probably tell them about it before I ever set foot on the plane, if I thought something about the flight might upset him. These kids often have much better hearing than other people and loud noises or high pitched noises that the rest of us can't hear can sometimes set them off. Some of them love pressure (like a seat belt) some of them can't stand it. Sometimes just a different sort of fabric freaks them out.

I'd let everybody I saw wearing a uniform know: He might behave this way, he might not, but if he does, I'm sorry in advance for the ruckus he's going to cause and the best thing to do is to act like it's not happening, because if you give him attention for it, it might become an attention seeking behavior, and the more overstimulated he gets the longer it will go on.

Who knows if she did that or not.

But the thing is a lot of times these tantrums, they just come out of nowhere. It's not like a regular kid who doesn't get something they want in a store and starts throwing a hissy fit.

It's like.. everything's going fine and then, for some reason that doesn't seem to make any sense, or no reason that you can figure out at all, wham. They're freaking out.

Panama Girl · #5 06-25-2008, 12:28 PM

My mom tells me she used to give us Benadryl before a flight... hmmm. It must have worked, I can't remember any of us throwing a fit on an airplane, ever.

I think I just found the origin of my taste for mind-altering substances of the relaxing kind.

Pythoness · #6 06-25-2008, 12:37 PM

Okay, here's an example that just happened today.

Aidyn comes up to me and he very sweetly asks, "Mommy, toast?"

Toast is not something he usually eats, and he's never asked for it before. So I'm wondering.. Where did he get the idea for toast?

So I say, "You want some toast?"

Very bubbly, happy, he says, "Yeah toast! Yay! C'mon mommy!" and starts heading to the kitchen.

Okay.. so he wants toast.

I get up, go to the kitchen, take out two slices of bread and put them in the toaster. The entire time, he's happy, he's talking about toast, he seems really thrilled about toast.

The toast is done, I take it out, I put it on a paper towel and give it to him..

Freak out. He starts yelling, "NO PUT IT BACK, DON'T BRUSH YOUR HAIR!"

?? Don't brush your hair? What does that have to do with toast? I have no idea, but somehow, to him, it makes sense.

"Aidyn, this is toast, you want toast?" "Yay! Toast! Yeah!"

...

Right. I may never understand what that was all about, or why he decided to say, "Don't brush your hair."

longnecker · #7 06-25-2008, 12:46 PM

Maybe the stewardess needs to work flights with older people going to retirement destinations . I see kids having problems on many flights I'm on. As long as they are not running up and down the isles or throwing stuff at other people.so what?? Most of us have had a kid or relative who has had a bad day When my son was 6 or 7 he screamed all the was from Atlanta to Philadelphia. To this day I now only use direct flights.

SCRAPPY · #8 06-25-2008, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pythoness

Okay, here's an example that just happened today.

Aidyn comes up to me and he very sweetly asks, "Mommy, toast?"

Toast is not something he usually eats, and he's never asked for it before. So I'm wondering.. Where did he get the idea for toast?

So I say, "You want some toast?"

Very bubbly, happy, he says, "Yeah toast! Yay! C'mon mommy!" and starts heading to the kitchen.

Okay.. so he wants toast.

I get up, go to the kitchen, take out two slices of bread and put them in the toaster. The entire time, he's happy, he's talking about toast, he seems really thrilled about toast.

The toast is done, I take it out, I put it on a paper towel and give it to him..

Freak out. He starts yelling, "NO PUT IT BACK, DON'T BRUSH YOUR HAIR!"

?? Don't brush your hair? What does that have to do with toast? I have no idea, but somehow, to him, it makes sense.

"Aidyn, this is toast, you want toast?" "Yay! Toast! Yeah!"

...

Right. I may never understand what that was all about, or why he decided to say, "Don't brush your hair."

Last night I was giving my daughter a bath and since she ate her dinner, we had talked about getting ice cream..She kept saying she wanted "fingers".. I had no idea what she was asking for, so I pretened to know and put my hand in front of her.. She say, "No daddy, FINGERS!!"

I take her out of the tub and she continues with the fingers thing.. Almost to the point of a major fit.. I said, "You ready for ice cream".. She nods and says "fingers daddy, FINGERS!!".. By now she's in rare form..
My wife says.. She wants sprinkles... SPRINKLES!! How the hell am I to distinguish Fingers, form Sprinkles???

I know it was off subject, but my wife saved me from a raging looney of a child...

Pythoness · #9 06-25-2008, 12:58 PM

Yeah, take that and magnify it about 100 times.

It's like the ultimate language barrier. When he speaks instead of babbles, he's speaking English. We just can't understand what he's saying. It makes no sense in the context of the situation, no matter how you dissect it. I wasn't brushing my hair. I wasn't brushing his hair. Nobody had said anything about brushing hair.. and I've never brushed my or anyone else's hair in the kitchen. Or with toast. Or while eating toast.

He knows what he means. He thinks I ought to know what he means. I don't know what he means.

I can only imagine how frustrating that must be. I know how frustrating it is to me.

SCRAPPY · #10 06-25-2008, 01:04 PM

YYYYYYYEP!!!

Very frustrating..

Autistic Child/Mom Kicked Off Plane

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