Air Canada passenger pricked by lancet left in seat pocket on flight to Hawaii

A Vancouver woman on a flight to Hawaii is angry at the way Air Canada staff treated her after she pricked her finger on a lancet left in the pouch of her seat.

AmielleLake leftVancouver forHonolulu on Monday evening with her 15-month-old daughter for a week's vacation. During takeoff, Lakesaid, she was rummaging in the seat pocket when she felt a sharp prick.

She pulled her hand out and her finger was bleeding. What looked like ashort needle about 2.5 centimetres long popped off her finger and into the aisle.

A nurse seated beside her told her the needlewasa lancing device used by diabetics to prick the skin to draw a blood sample, which isthen applied to a blood glucose test strip.

Inside the seat pocket was the rest of the lancing kit, including the glucose strip with a blood sample.

Nurse advises hospital consult

Lake said the nurse told her to take the lancetandstripto a hospital to test them for diseases.

But Lake said the Air Canada flight attendantconfiscated them and the crew refused to give themto her when the flight landed in Honolulu.

"I found the process that Air Canada undertook and the way they dealtwith the situation really, really upsetting," Lake said in an interview from Hawaii Wednesday.

She said flight attendants were helpful "at first," but, as the flight wore on, she felt they were more concerned about liability issues than Lake's well-being.

After the flightlanded, Lake asked Air Canada crew what they intended to do with the needle andglucose strip. She told them she wanted to get it tested.

Air Canada staffwouldn't answer her question.Instead, she was handed a customer carenumber to phone.

Lakewent to hospital in Honoluluthat night for a tetanus shot and was told the chances of contracting an illness werevery small. She was advised to undergo more tests when she returnedhome.

In a statement to CBC, Air Canada confirmed the incident, describing it as "exceptionally rare" and "troubling."

Air Canada understands passenger's 'distress'

"We understand our customer's distress on coming into contact with it," spokeswoman Angela Mah wrote, suggestingthe airline kept the lancet for safety reasons.

Mah wrotethat Air Canada has a "detailed protocol" for these kinds of incidents. "Our standard safety procedures are being correctly followed to ensure the lancet remains secured to prevent further injury and contamination."

Mah said it was unfortunate that the person who first used the lancet did not dispose of it safely.

Air Canada staff advised Lake to seek medical care once the flight landed in Honolulu, Mahsaid, and "we remain in contact with her."

Lake said she disagreed with Air Canada's assertion that it was followingprotocol.

Rather, she said, it appeared airline crew members were unsure what to do and preoccupied with liability issues.

The lancet should have been removed before passengers were loaded, Lake noted.

Lake, who is an entrepreneur, said she's always thinking of "the customer experience," and thinks the flight crew and staff on the ground didn't show sufficient concern.

"I felt like there is this fear of liability that was more important than my own well-being," Lake said.

'Obstructionist communications'

Lake's husband, Damien Assonitis, agrees Air Canada seemed more concerned about its legal liability than his wife's health.

Assonitissaid he dealtwithmultipleAir Canada agents from around midnight until 3 p.m. PT the next day. He then went to Vancouver International Airport to try to speak with a manager about whether the airline had tested the lancetand the results.

"I was quite upset because time was of the essence," he said.

"It was just obstructionist communications. Nothing was communicated to us over a very long night and a long day."

Throughout that time, Assonitis said, he was offeredconflicting information, including oneAir Canadaagent who told him one of the airline's medical officers had cleared the lancet for release.

He said another agent told him it was being tested in B.C.

Testing not possible

Eventually, a manager accompanied by a security guard told him they had tried to get the lancet tested, but the airline had been informed it wouldn't be possible.

Assonitis said the manager offered him a flight to Honolulu to be with his wife, but he couldn't go because of work.

Air Canada told CBC its protocols include consulting with the company's "highly-trained medical staff" and consulting with "third party medical experts."

"[They] advised that the most effective step to take in such circumstances is for the individual to get tested themselves as a precaution, and that laboratory testing of a lancet is not an effective means to determine possible contaminants," said Mah.

Dr. Mel Krajden,with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control,confirmed thattesting the lancet would not produce reliable results.

He also said less than one per cent of people in B.C.have blood-baseddiseases like HIV or hepatitis B or C, and the risk of transmission in acase such asthis is very low.

"These kind of incidents where someone gets jabbed by a lancet are very traumatizing to a person," he said.

"I think having a conversation with this kind of information usually calms them."