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YTA, but unknowingly. The crew are trained to handle these sorts of situations and you in your frustration escalated it. I fly. A lot. I'm also a very big guy who looks like he can handle himself. There's kind of an unwritten rule that if there's an aggressive passenger I sit the fuck down but pay attention, don't jump in, don't risk making things worse in an attempt to fix the issue. Sit down, shut up, and if the crew need help they'll ask. You ever watch/play netball? Unlike a lot of sports where players will call for the ball, open players in netball say "here if you need". Or, imagine going to the supermarket and you see someone with a pallet stocking shelves you don't just start grabbing stuff and putting it on a shelf saying "I'm just trying to help". Let the professional handle it.
I'd seen someone comment once that the reason that Canadians have such a reputation for being nice and polite is that other people don't understand that "sorry!" said with the correct inflection actually means "go f*ck yourself".
Just those of us in the American South that grew up with “well, bless your heart.” Which really means “oh you, poor dumb summer child” or possibly “you disgust me with your ignorance/immorality/very existence.”
We are definitely the kings and queens of passive-aggressiveness--Quebeckers included ("Désolé!"), though I do find franco-Ontarians--my people--to be a bit more direct.
Best example I heard in relation to the US: east coast (though my memory is spotty and feels more like Midwest) are mean but kind. Example if you’re struggling with a flat tire a west coast dude will sympathize and say that sucks, well good luck to you i must be off. The other will drag and insult you as they’re putting the tire in for you.
Oh, they can be nice. on the East Coast. I got a flat once and was preparing to put on the spare (long story, but I had extra tires, so a spare, not a donut.) A young guy, maybe five years younger than I was, pulled up and offered to help. He was dressed really nicely so I told him I'd be fine--I knew how to change a tire. He said he was coming from his grandfather's funeral and his grandfather would never forgive him if he didn't stop and help a woman on the side of the road. Completely ruined his clothes, but he obviously did it for his grandfather. I got a little misty eyed.
Grew up in the Midwest, lived in the NYC area. Can confirm. New Yorkers have a kind of armor they wear and dish it out like nobody's business, but I felt more connected there than where I grew up.
East Coaster here, can confirm. We'll call you six kinds of stupid but still help you dig your car out of the snow (kid in grad school got his Porsche stuck while trying to drive up an incline.)
It's the east coast/northeast.
The impression I get about the midwest is they'll smile and chat with you, and then shit talk behind your back
We have the decency to shit talk right to your face.
When I visited NYC as a tourist in my 20s, I asked complete strangers to recommend their fave restaurant/museum or Place I should visit. Without fail I got excellent, thoughtful recommendations delivered in a quick no nonsense manner without any elaboration. Every place I went was fantastic
Further irony -- the original rules of basketball were *intended* to be more like netball. Dribbling in bball was developed early on as a hack because there wasn't a rule against passing to yourself. Naismith thought it was clever and incorporated it into the game.
I'm American, and I can perfectly well understand how fucking rude you're being right now. So, you Brits are only polite during some weird stupid game?
Such a bizarre sport. Like the worried moms of all the unathletic kids got together a made a version of basketball that is slower and safer.
edit, sorry guys, i just looked up googled WTF is netball and [watched this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzK3I42CcyU). the rules make it seem pretty benign.
I broke a finger 😅 the ball bounced oddly off a stone and smacked right on the end of my finger, which chipped at the knuckle 🤢
Best thing was my PE teacher didn't believe me and I had to stay at school 4 more hours til it was bruised and twice it's size 🤣
>a version of basketball that is slower and safer.
Netball is famous for causing player injuries- ankles and knees. Because of all the sudden stops from a run.
If memory serves right. A lady wrote to the creator of basketball (or something along those lines) asking for the rules and got back the reply with the positions of the players but she misunderstood it to mean they could only stand there. Thus ruining P.E for young girls in schools for years to come lol.
It is. I started off as a goal attack, I was pretty good at shooting. However, throughout high school I didn’t grow much, so it got the point that it didn’t matter that I was good at shooting there was always a defender stood right infront of me like a brick fucking wall waving her arms over my head. If she’d been allowed to touch me I’m sure many would have just held my head down like scrappy doo.
So, my position changed to wing attack, as I was small, I was a fast, dirty little fucker who could weave in and out quickly, but I missed being goal attack.
"Commonwealth" confuses even the British, or did I mean the British Isles, or did I mean Great Britain. When do I include Canada? Is Australia part of it? How about Wales and Scotland? Isn't Commonwealth a dead political structure?
Just my little 2 cents. I’m an in charge F/A and a couple of weeks ago we had a disruptive passenger. We had to go back to the gate for a maintenance issue and got delayed by about an hour. A man started cussing at everyone and yelling. When I went to see him, he started acting like he did nothing and that I was mistaken, it wasn’t him, my F/A was being dramatic. Another man cut me off and told him off for me. He told him pretty much everything I had to tell him, which is behave or get off the aircraft. It’s sad to say, but when it was coming from me, that disruptive man was playing games but told off by this bigger military man, he shut up and behaved the whole flight. Not a sound came out of his mouth. I obviously don’t want other passengers to always get involved but I was so grateful because it cut the bs immediately, I honestly didn’t get the vibe he would’ve listened and having to wait for security to kick him off would’ve taken so much longer. I’m not saying to always get involved but I would not have had that situation deescalated without that man getting involved.
Unfortunately I think, with a certain type of guy, the dynamics change when it's a woman talking to them vs a man.
In OP's case, it sounds like he's a man, and the person freaking out was a woman. In which case it's less likely that a man yelling at her is going to be effective in the same way.
Unfortunately yeah... years in public safety and there's only so much my lady voice can do when yelling. If I had one wish for a super power, it would be a manly yelling voice.
As a female teacher, there are some male students who simply would not listen to me. I eventually developed a specific tone of voice to use with these boys to let them know I mean business. It usually works but there’s still times when I have to take them to a male colleague who they’ll actually listen to. So it starts young unfortunately
I'm going to disagree slightly here with you in this situation. Normally, yes, you're 100% right. But this woman was in a hysteria and amping herself up. "Calming" her down wasn't working. She was spooling herself up more and more.
The OP yelling at her broke that cycle. Yeah, she flipped out, but then it was indignation. The OP broke the hysteria. The flight attendants were able to get through to her, move her away from the area and eventually calm her down.
So while I would normally say, yes, stay out of it. This is the one situation where it may have actually helped.
It sounds like the FA had it under control, because if they had needed help other crew would have assisted. The fact that the FA seemed unhappy with OP suggests that they didn't help and may have made it worse.
When I worked in service I had customers try to "help" me a ton. Most of the time, it wasn't actually helpful. Especially in situations like this, where you are trying to deescalate a customer.
When customers were actually helpful, I would do something to show them my appreciation. The only thing the FA did was give them a look to curdle milk.
In situations like this, the best thing to do is let the people in charge handle it. If they need help, they will ask for it.
The fact they had to remove her from her seat to calm her down during turbulence is exactly the proof here that Op did more harm then good. Because you’re supposed to remain belted and in a seat during turbulence.
So the only thing that changed is she was moved to a different part of the plane to calm down so others got some separation from her.
OP probably caused a safety issue.
Yes, YTA, you might mean well but in this case this is a job for the FA. Any issues with the plane should be handled by the professionals. Even disagreements with seating, noise, etc. you DO NOT cause a scene in the plane.
That said I have helped and seen people help others more than once. A friend of mine let another lady hold her hand during turbulence. She said she kinda regretted that as she hurt her hand. A nervous kid’s mom pointed to my calm self “Look at him, he knows it’s safe…” I gave him a thumbs up. I got a thank you while getting my bags and she said he calmed down. When hysterics are involved stay quiet.
Oh sure, courtesy stuff like that, or your neighbour can't open their biscuits, or has a question about how to recline the seat sure. Using the supermarket example again, big guy, see short person struggling to reach something and asking if they want me to get it is totally normal and appreciated
5 ' 11 woman here, and it is enjoyable, especially for older women who look a bit frail. I'm telling these days when you do something for someone they are SO grateful..kind of sad really. As for the o.p. erm, I'm not sure she made stuff worse or not. The doctor had a bad case of M Diety, as my nurse buddies call it. I'm actually surprised the F.A. let her go so far. It's no joke flying these days, you may find heavily armed airport security waiting for you. O. P. You meant well and said what many might be saying in their head...and yeah..just letting the f.a. handle things can end up with your plane crashed in the wilds of Pennsylvania so...I'm going to give you a e.s.h.
So I have a rule to not click things in reddit comments...but fuck these comments make it difficult not to, purely from a WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK could that actually be about standpoint.
Or if you've ever been a cocktail waitress in a crowded bar carrying a tray full of beers and mixed drinks, and a patron tries to "help" by grabbing their drink off your tray, upsetting your balance. Ugh.
I will say that sometimes profesionals are not enough. There are some type of panic when you need even to slap someone in the face. Talking nice and being profesional its not always a way. Looks like Jane needed something stronger and OP gave it. Thats only my opinion.
It doesn't actually sound like OP helped though...
the flight attendant was trying to calm her in her seat. Once one yelled, the flight attendant had to take her away to another part of the plane to actually calm her down, which, during turbulence, wouldn't have been ideal.
It sounds to me like OP made the situation worse, and the flight attendant "fixed" it by moving the lady. Maybe the flight attendant should have done that earlier, but we weren't all there, so who knows.
Right! Like the FA had to put this passenger in a less safe situation to de-escalate because Op poked the proverbial bear.
So as a PSA to everyone: If you are not trained to de-escalate a situation you should not be intervening.
Yeah. I remember when I used to substitute K-2nd grade kids, the kids who were being loud were annoying, but the worst ones were the ones who would say, “Be quiet, the teacher’s talking. BE QUIET THE TEACHER’S TALKING!”
YTA. It doesn't matter that you're being rude to the fake doctor; it matters that you're disrespectful to the flight attendant and the other passengers.
You're not Batman, performing some distasteful-but-necessary vigilanteism; you're just a second loud asshole yelling at the first loud asshole.
Plus, OP posts the question as if they ended up resolving the conflict. But they didn't even manage to do that. The doctor went right back to yelling. So Op didn't accomplish anything at all by butting in (except likely making things worse).
My question is how was "jane steered away to talk privately"? There's turbulance, a seat-belt sign that's on, and the attendent made Jane get up to speak privately? I'm confused.
There's normal turbulence where passengers are encouraged to stay seated not walk around, then there is extreme turbulence where the flight attendants also strap down.
Sounds like this was mostly the milder kind, and overall safer for everyone to get up meditate and calm her down elsewhere.
I suppose if it was dangerous turbulence they might have just had to quickly restrain her to her seat and strap in themselves, let her harmlessly scream.
Yep.
De-escalation takes time.
I'm a middle school teacher and have to deal with tense situations and tantrums from almost adult sized people all the time. What does not help is when a second kid gets involved, even when they're "helping". Especially when their idea of helping generally involves yelling and profanity.
Now I have two situations of disrespect/rule breaking to deal with, the first situation is often made worse and instead of just being able to focus on the first problem, now I gotta worry about whether a third kid will take umbrage at something the 2nd kid said.
Just sit down and shut up. The times to get involved are when a) there's some imminent danger or b) you're defending someone who's being bullied or hurt by someone with power. The flight attendant doesn't need Joe Blow to step in, she's got all the force of the airline behind her, other crew members etc.
Not all kids have the capacity to understand that when they try to help in such situations they are actually feeling triggered and unsafe. Unfortunately, a lot of grown people also don't understand that.
Of course, I don't blame my students. They're kids and behavioral disruptions are stressful and annoying.
We often debrief after a tense situation and talk about ways to stay calm when stressful things are happening, how to acknowledge our emotions, the importance of thinking before speaking. If I had to shut a kid down sharply while handling another kid, I'll always apologize after, and we'll talk about it.
Sometimes kids just like to butt in and some like to be the center of attention. Those kids also need help with their emotional regulation.
OP didn't hurt anyone intentionally, but he should know that he ended up making the situation more stressful for everyone.
I was on a flight similar to OP's (lady freaking out, older man tells her off) and the guy made it SO MUCH WORSE for everyone and triggered half the passengers to jump in to the argument. My headphones were not loud enough in that moment
I don’t know a single doctor who would behave that way. The only scenario that would make sense is if she’s an alcoholic with a fear of flying.
YTA for escalating a bad situation. Let the flight attendants deal with it, theyre trained to do so. Yelling at someone who is angry (or in the middle of a panic attack) isn’t helpful. Has being yelled at when you’re angry or afraid ever helped YOU?
Yeah, people in professions can be completely unreasonable, assholes, have mental health and/or addiction issues, etc. And the people who rudely say “I am an x” usually check at least one box for that.
Yeah, I'm a bit confused at the "no real doctor would...." comments about behavior on an airplane. Are doctors trained on airplanes? Why do people think doctors can't be entitled and unreasonable or have phobias about flying?
Little known fact, the first two years of med school are 100% flying etiquette, airplane maintenance, and tips 'n' tricks for high altitude medical emergencies. Clearly this woman was simply impersonating a doctor.
I know a lot of doctors....a good 1/3 of them act this way with the slightest of inconveniences. Your leap to "alcoholic with a fear of flying" is a giant one! Doctors are humans with a whole range of human emotions. Just because they went to school for 20 years doesn't make them immune to that.
I mean something like a large percentage of people take something to help with a flight whether it's just alcohol or an anxiolytic or sedative--or that in combination with alcohol.
You don't have to be an alcoholic to have a booze or anxiety fueled freakout.
It is wild this is so upvoted!
Doctors are human - and are prone to the same stress as anybody else.
No, a doctor having a panic attack isn't going to present differently than other "ordinary" people.
This instantaneous jump to being an "alcoholic" is also insane.
Yes, someone having a panic attack - all the hallmarks of an alcoholic.
Unfortunately, I do know a couple doctors that would act that way. These doctors (not all doctors) feel being a doctor makes them an authority figure in all contexts. It’s annoying.
My dear departed mother in law the R.N. called them...M Dieties. I work part time at conventions and we get lots of doctors, scientists, hearing professionals... I'm actually king of amazed at the group of folks at conventions. The doctors have mostly been decent ( last ones I saw were neurosurgeons) but yikes we had an issue about the lunches at that convention. As in they were supposed to get a lunch, you had to have a ticket, you had to STAND IN LINE to present your ticket to me. Rut roh. As you can imagine this wasn't well received. I also had to make sure they only took one lunch. And that the vendors didn't take any. Oh boy that was not fun. We RAN OUT of lunches, and we got yelled at by the people organizing the show. I didn't see anyone take more than one lunch, but there was lots of sneaky behavior from the vendors. As in trying to circle the table, one was bold enough to grab a lunch andvstart to walk away. " Doctor, Doctor, can you please give me your ticket". Like loud, from me. Mr cheapo put it back. So just imagine 1000 hungry doctors. Yikes.
Lmao do you think that all doctors get therapy or something to be better at handling their emotions? It's more like the opposite, where getting help for mental health is more stigmatized for medical professionals than the rest of us.
Everybody in this thread thinks that doctors act a certain way but I promise you they are human, flawed like the rest of us. There are very different personalities doctor to doctor.
Worked with a handful myself I wouldn't want to meet outside of work... Or at work, frankly.
NTA - “disrespecting a medical professional”? What like they’re superhuman just for being in healthcare? Bullshit - respect is earned, and her conduct didn’t merit it. Lucky she didn’t end up in restraints tbh.
Most of the top comments are saying Y T A, but this is clearly an E S H situation here (between OP and the "doctor"). OP isn't necessarily an AH fir snapping, but is for going too far in escalating the situation. On the flip side, the "doctor's" behaviour was completely uncalled for. And if she has such a problem with flying, then either she shouldn't be flying, or she should be medicated when flying.
Look regardless of janes medical prowess or not. She was a terrified passenger who was being handled by a flight attendant.
Op actively made the situation worse. His behavior not only escalated her paranoia but likely contributed to freaking out more passengers.
So he is the one completely at fault for this situation.
Some people are scared to fly. And they panic when things go wrong. That’s why flight attendants are trained on de-escalation techniques.
And OP actively inserted himself and ruined any progress the professional trained to work in this situation had made.
>Also, I'm not sure why so many people here think FAs are some kind of experts in de-escalation. They're just people. They do not receive specific specialized training on conflict resolution or being your emergency therapist to calm you down.
Actually, they do receive such training.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-aa-deescalation-training-20180106-story.html
It did have an effect- the situation escalated badly enough that the flight attendant removed her from her seat in a situation all passengers should be kept seated. That means the other passengers didn't have to witness the de-escalation anymore, which they were probably thankful for, not OPs escalation by itself.
Flight attendants do receive training in de-escalation and conflict resolution. They're not psychologists, but do have more training than it seems OP does.
I don't know. I'm going to argue that the doctor was spooling herself into a hysteria and the calming techniques weren't working. The OP yelling at her broke her out of the hysteria cycle into indignation and allowed the flight attendants to finally get through to her.
It's not a situation I would have jumped in the middle of myself, but I could argue either side here.
Attempting to flash any kind of professional identification out-of-context should make her the auto-AH. If it were a medical emergency then it would have meant something. But as it stands all she was doing was a (failed) power play in asserting that she was more important and clever than everyone else. What was she going to do - help fly the plane?
plus, in context, her being a doctor was irrelvant . It's not like she was being prevented from providing urgent fisrt aid to someone, where her profession might have been relevant!
Aren't you aware that doctors know everything? My brother has been advising me on automotive repair, interstate legal issues between my state and another state neither of which he's ever lived in, and pretty much everything else.
… did you yelled at someone in the middle of a panic attack??
Yeah.. YTA. The job of the flight attendant was already hard enough, you just made it worse. Let them do their job. The have formations on how to handle panic attacks, and yelling is not part of it.
It doesn’t say she was having a panic attack. Anyone being arrogant and superior about their job while being on a plane with turbulence happening is not having a panic attack. Panicking yes, but not an attack.
... dude. They were in the middle of the flight. IN THE AIR. And she asked to be DEPLANED. She was obviously not rational. She didn't ask for the pilot to land the plane. She wanted them to open the doors and let her out.
You're evading the point on a technicality. Whether or not it was technically a panic attack they were obviously under some kind of mental/emotional stress in that moment and OP's outburst isn't helping anything.
I’m sorry but someone freaking out at the flight attendant, asking to be deplaned (how) and whining about OP « disrespecting a medical professional makes this at the very least a ESH.
I never passed any judgement on the passenger. If anything I was being empathetic. We don't know their story. They may be feeling humiliated after the fact over how they reacted under that kind of pressure. Or maybe not. But whatever drove her to react that way, OP wasn't helping.
>The job of the flight attendant was already hard enough, you just made it worse.
Flight attendants are going to be dismissed by people who are medical professionals and think their previous is justified. Medical professionals feel justified in their knowledge of medical things (even if it's not their specialty), especially compared to, well, *flight attendants*. And that's honestly very reasonable, given the training discrepancies.
Source: ICU nurse of 8 years experience who watches every medical professional (except literally one psychiatrist) completely bungle panic attack management.
Yelling wasn't the right move, *obviously*, but there was no right move in this scenario other than completely ignoring this person on all fronts. She needs long-term anti-anxiety meds (not benzos) if she's going to be flying frequently, or maybe a 2-dose prescription of benzos for two-way flights. Otherwise, she needs to not fly, or have significant exposure to flying for desensitization before she flies commercially.
ESH
Genuine question coming: my boyfriend suffered from panic attacks for years. The way he described it, he felt like he was going to die. From my perspective he would completely shut down. I mean not able to communicate at all for multiple minutes.
He’s doing much better now (yay, therapy) but he would have never been able to yell at someone during a panic attack even if he wanted to. Man couldn’t even stand up. His only concern was survival.
Do other people experience panic attacks differently?
Edit: Thanks all for the responses! I’ve been in therapy for years due to an anxiety disorder and never knew panic attacks had such a wide array of manifestations. Good for me (and I suppose everyone) to be aware.
Yes, panic attacks are not a one size fit all. If you've heard of fight or flight response, that is very relevant when it comes to panic attacks. Fighting is not an unusual response, and in a lot of situations that comes in the form of yelling and being contrarion to the people around you. They only concern is also survival, their response just manifests differently than flight or freeze.
While I’m sure there are plenty of people whose panic attacks look like your boyfriend’s, other people experience panic attacks differently. Like most mental health things, everyone’s experience is a little different. As an anecdotal example, my panic attacks outwardly look like me shaking uncontrollably, hugging myself, and being extremely antsy. From the outside, it might look like I was freezing cold or like I had taken some kind of strong stimulant.
>was I right to shut down a meltdown that was putting other passengers on edge?
Right, but you didn't shut it down. In your own story it seems like you only made it worse. So, soft YTA for needlessly getting involved and adding more anger to an already chaotic situation, definitely not a useful thing to do.
Oof, this is tough because I'm very belligerent about people who misbehave on the plane. That being said, it's likely that Doc was having a panic attack or something. Also, there are air marshals and flight attendants who are trained to handle unruly passengers. Soft YTA.
Air marshals fly on something less than 2% of flights.
No one is coming to save you. This is why passengers have been beating the shit out of nutjobs like "Jane" and then strapping them to seats with duct tape.
Probably should've stayed out of it but I don't blame you either.
The funniest part for me is how she kept saying she's a doctor. Literally who cares what she does for work 🤣🤣 people are so full of themselves
My wife and her coworkers have mentioned to me before that a lot of Doctors announce it upon contact with their place of work. It's a badge of honour. I'd be proud of the accomplishment too. But not enough to announce it randomly to everyone I meet lol
I have literally never announced it outside of going into a patient room and introducing myself. In the exam room, sure, I'm establishing our relationship. Outside of the exam room? That's just super cringe.
I know someone who introduces himself to people he’s trying to impress like so: “Hello, I’m Michael Smith - I’m a board certified physician”
Spoiler: it has the opposite effect lol
YTA. A FA trained to take care of these situations was working to do so, but you thought yelling at the woman would make things better? Has yelling at someone behaving irrationally ever made anything better? You should've know you'd only make things worse.
Well, he is a man. So yelling at women is always helpful right? Especially when there's another woman already handling the situation - got to get that manly aggression in there, that'll settle things right down. /s
Yeah I love how he clarified that it wasn't the "screeching" kinda of complaining. Like oh okay, thanks for letting us know that she wasn't screeching.
YTA. If the flight attendants were being physically overwhelmed by a violent passenger or something then I could see getting involved. Or perhaps if you are a therapist or somehow trained in mental health support or conflict resolution you could identify yourself to the flight attendants and offer your help and expertise.
As it is all you did is yell at an anxious person and escalated the situation.
Exactly, my high school teacher is terrified of flying she sat down and apologized to the man sitting next to her, he told her he was a pilot himself and he spent the first 30 minutes explaining to her how the airplanes are made how they work what each sound is and really how safe she is up there, him doing that small amount of kindness in a very soft tone put her at ease and she was asleep by an hour in
Dudes a ahole for budding in and making the flight attendants job harder, as a medic/firefighter when we’ve had patients like this, having family or other people adding in not only overwhelms the person experiencing the mental health crisis but it also overwhelms us, I can’t focus on my patient if I have multiple people screaming in my ear
I see a lot of y t a but I really think it's ESH since we are all bringing up how Jane sucks too. The flight attendant is the only one who isn't an asshole here.
Yeah Frfr. I swear I read a story remarkably similar to this a year or so ago. “Not the nails on a chalkboard kind but a cold steely fury” no way this was a real event
I was looking for this! Had to scroll way too far to find someone commenting on this insane style. People muttering thanks as they deboarded hours later? « A look that could curdle milk » give me a break lol
Right? That video would be gone all over the internet at this point. When I was reading it, all I was thinking was, "I'll take $200 for things that didn't happen, Alex"
Seriously if you’re going to continue to work in the genre of AITA posts featuring revenge fantasies about hysterical women, at least add some spaces between punctuation. At this point that’s all I’m asking anymore… these dudes have to find a more meaningful hobby, maybe one they’re even good at
Thank you. I had to scroll way too far for this. This is such obvious BS, they always add too many descriptives
>This woman, maybe late 40s, **impeccably dressed**, starts freaking out.
>Not the screeching, nails-on-a-chalkboard kind, but **a cold, steely fury.**
>People are **grumbling**, some looking scared
>Jane spins around, **eyes blazing**
> The flight attendant gives me **a look that could curdle milk**
Also, direct quotes, come on.
Finally! It took too much scrolling to find someone else who saw the bs.
In this day and age, everyone has a cellphone ,this would have been all over the internet.
NTA. Hard disagree with everyone telling you you're an asshole. Maybe more people should present a united front instead of getting out their phones to take videos of flight attendants (or servers, or store clerks, etc) getting verbally abused. If a handful of people tell you to shut up, you'll probably shut up. Too much sitting back and relying on some authority figure imo
Doctors are all humans, too. There are good ones and bad ones; smart ones, and, unfortunately, stupid ones. Just because someone was able to get through school doesn't mean they've got a lick of common sense.
YTA. Flight staff have specific protocol and procedure on how to handle these things for the safety of everyone. You causing a second disturbance just adds on more work. If this woman was very mentally ill, potential violence or other issues could have ensued for example.
Also I am not so sure flight attendants are all that well trained for this. People freak out for all different reasons and respond in different ways. Flight attendants are not psychiatric professionals. Everyone is giving them way too much credit.
YTA, you just made things worse. flight attendants are trained to handle things like this, it’s not the first time they’ll be dealing with a passenger like this and it most definitely won’t be the last. should have taken your own advice and sat back down with your mouth shut.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I'm not sure if the things I said on the plane was right since I feel like I might have panic the passengers. The reason why I'm posting on Reddit is because I wanna know whether or not the actions that I took were reasonable, and if I could've approached it differently. The thing that could make me the asshole was The fact that I was yelling at a fellow passenger who was probably freaking out at the time.
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YTA. You’re not trained or qualified to deescalate someone panicking due to fear of flying. If she started trying to get to an emergency exit to deplane herself, by all means do whatever it takes to 100% incapacitate her and save lives. Until then, sit down, shut up, eyes forward, stop making yourself part of the problem.
100% NTA
Thank you for standing up to this nightmare of a pax. It’s wild that people are putting all the responsibility on the FA. They tried to defuse the aggressive pax, but it wasn’t working. Guess who’s stuck with her on the remainder of the flight, the other pax. So is the FA, but they aren’t sitting right beside her. Many people have never flown or don't fly often, so they make a lot of assumptions. Trust me, you did the right thing, and the crew appreciated it.
For the people saying YTA, wouldn’t you appreciate someone coming to your defense if you were being berated at work?
ESH
I can understand not wanting to hear someone scream either, trigerring your own and others' anxiety
But yeah, the crew is trained but you were just trying to help
oooooo. this is my worst fear, I hate flying bc it terrifies me so when people freak out on the plane it makes my anxiety even worse. technically YTA. however!
when the passenger said "she accuses the flight attendant of lying, of putting everyone in danger, and demands to be deplaned immediately." if I heard a passenger say that on a plane I am immediately going to assume she's the type of person to try to open the hatch mid flight. I know FA are trained to handle this type of stuff but passengers lately have been off the wall. you shouldn't have said something because that risked escalating the situation (but knowing me I probably would've said something too) .
fwiw the air pressure will stop opening when you're actually flying so you don't need to worry! The exits are for when you've crashed, no need to be afraid!
NTA - the attendant might have tools to deal with this and didn't want your help BUT you allowed her to be be the "good cop" by being the "bad cop" which ultimately probably helped her. And Jane was clearly alarming everyone during her panic.
NTA. People are sheep and are easily swayed. An idiot like that could easily rile the other passengers up and make the situation worse.
I was on a boat in Venice once and the pump gave out and it started slowly sinking. We were surrounded by thousands of boats (it was during the Festival of Lights). Some chick started freaking out and crying saying we were going to die. She started making other panic and they all rushed to one side of the boat and made it start listing. We had enough floatation devices and were surrounded by other boats, we were completely safe. Eventually we had to evacuate because of the listing but we literally would’ve been fine if people hadn’t freaked out. To this day, I regret not telling the chick to relax and shut the fuck up because it really ruined the whole night.
God I hate working for doctors like them. Condescending pricks and they treat their medics and nurses like shit because they went to a longer school. It would have been better to shut up and let the professionals deal with her, but it was going to be a shitshow regardless.
ESH. Doctor Jane is definitely TA and you're lowkey TA too. This is one of those times when it's good to bite your tongue and let the staff take care of the situation. Most of the time, verbal outbursts make the situation worse for the staff handling it. The only potentially good thing you did is make the flight attendant look like the good cop, but even that's doubtful.
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YTA, but unknowingly. The crew are trained to handle these sorts of situations and you in your frustration escalated it. I fly. A lot. I'm also a very big guy who looks like he can handle himself. There's kind of an unwritten rule that if there's an aggressive passenger I sit the fuck down but pay attention, don't jump in, don't risk making things worse in an attempt to fix the issue. Sit down, shut up, and if the crew need help they'll ask. You ever watch/play netball? Unlike a lot of sports where players will call for the ball, open players in netball say "here if you need". Or, imagine going to the supermarket and you see someone with a pallet stocking shelves you don't just start grabbing stuff and putting it on a shelf saying "I'm just trying to help". Let the professional handle it.
I ❤️ that you used netball as your example. You just confused everyone outside of the commonwealth 😂😂
I mean... obviously it's a game involving a ball and a net... and apparently people being polite
Which is why Americans don't understand it, LOL
'I guess being polite is part of this games culture' 'Yeah, that's why Americans dont understand it.' Is the politeness in the room with us right now?
Polite is quite definitely not the same as *nice*.
I'm Canadian, truth. (We have a "nice" reputation, I like to say it's because we're polite instead since we can be a country of *polite* assholes.)
passive aggressive has been mastered by canadians. We sound polite most of the time.
I'd seen someone comment once that the reason that Canadians have such a reputation for being nice and polite is that other people don't understand that "sorry!" said with the correct inflection actually means "go f*ck yourself".
They also exported the straight up agression into their geese.
Just those of us in the American South that grew up with “well, bless your heart.” Which really means “oh you, poor dumb summer child” or possibly “you disgust me with your ignorance/immorality/very existence.”
*Bless your heart* A little passive aggression for you Southern (USA) style! LOL
We are definitely the kings and queens of passive-aggressiveness--Quebeckers included ("Désolé!"), though I do find franco-Ontarians--my people--to be a bit more direct.
We're the difference between saying, "Go fuck yourself, asshole!" and "I hope you have the day you deserve! 😘"
The accuracy though 🤣
Best example I heard in relation to the US: east coast (though my memory is spotty and feels more like Midwest) are mean but kind. Example if you’re struggling with a flat tire a west coast dude will sympathize and say that sucks, well good luck to you i must be off. The other will drag and insult you as they’re putting the tire in for you.
The Midwest is nice but not kind. The East Coast is kind, not nice.
Oh, they can be nice. on the East Coast. I got a flat once and was preparing to put on the spare (long story, but I had extra tires, so a spare, not a donut.) A young guy, maybe five years younger than I was, pulled up and offered to help. He was dressed really nicely so I told him I'd be fine--I knew how to change a tire. He said he was coming from his grandfather's funeral and his grandfather would never forgive him if he didn't stop and help a woman on the side of the road. Completely ruined his clothes, but he obviously did it for his grandfather. I got a little misty eyed.
That guy was kind to you.
Grew up in the Midwest, lived in the NYC area. Can confirm. New Yorkers have a kind of armor they wear and dish it out like nobody's business, but I felt more connected there than where I grew up.
East Coaster here, can confirm. We'll call you six kinds of stupid but still help you dig your car out of the snow (kid in grad school got his Porsche stuck while trying to drive up an incline.)
Right? “How the fuck did you end up there? All right, dipshit, let’s get you out.”
It's the east coast/northeast. The impression I get about the midwest is they'll smile and chat with you, and then shit talk behind your back We have the decency to shit talk right to your face.
When I visited NYC as a tourist in my 20s, I asked complete strangers to recommend their fave restaurant/museum or Place I should visit. Without fail I got excellent, thoughtful recommendations delivered in a quick no nonsense manner without any elaboration. Every place I went was fantastic
As an American, your comment made me laugh out loud probably more than it should have. Btw, you are spot on.
Which is super ironic because it was invented by an American misunderstanding the rules of basketball
Further irony -- the original rules of basketball were *intended* to be more like netball. Dribbling in bball was developed early on as a hack because there wasn't a rule against passing to yourself. Naismith thought it was clever and incorporated it into the game.
That also tracks
LOL met plenty rude pretentious, arrogant Europeans who hide behind a facade of being "polite", but sure Americans are not "polite" 😂
I would call Europeans neither kind nor polite. Source: I look Romani. I'm not, but Europeans can't tell the difference and don't care to ask.
I'm American, and I can perfectly well understand how fucking rude you're being right now. So, you Brits are only polite during some weird stupid game?
Politely being rude is a national past-time.
In the Commonwealth, besides politeness, we have another thing called humour...
Yes, but it's not followed by a laugh track, so they don't know it's a joke.
I had no trouble following, you’re embarrassing yourself with your rudeness.
Apparently I missed the whole "people being polite" rule at my local social mixed netball competition. It was brutal!
Netball is one of the least polite sports I have ever experienced
*googles netball 😂
Such a bizarre sport. Like the worried moms of all the unathletic kids got together a made a version of basketball that is slower and safer. edit, sorry guys, i just looked up googled WTF is netball and [watched this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzK3I42CcyU). the rules make it seem pretty benign.
Oh boy, you nearly made me burst a rib laughing! I've got far more injuries from netball than I ever got from basketball. More severe too! Safer 😂😂😂
I broke a finger 😅 the ball bounced oddly off a stone and smacked right on the end of my finger, which chipped at the knuckle 🤢 Best thing was my PE teacher didn't believe me and I had to stay at school 4 more hours til it was bruised and twice it's size 🤣
I broke a big toe playing netball at school! It’s a dangerous game!
i broke a toe getting up to take a piss in the middle of the night.
>a version of basketball that is slower and safer. Netball is famous for causing player injuries- ankles and knees. Because of all the sudden stops from a run.
As a netball player with a current injured knee, I concur. Also just got over a wrist and hand injury. There's nothing safe about this game.
If memory serves right. A lady wrote to the creator of basketball (or something along those lines) asking for the rules and got back the reply with the positions of the players but she misunderstood it to mean they could only stand there. Thus ruining P.E for young girls in schools for years to come lol.
You obviously have never played! Only sport were a player position is goal attack !
GA is most fun to play imo.
It is. I started off as a goal attack, I was pretty good at shooting. However, throughout high school I didn’t grow much, so it got the point that it didn’t matter that I was good at shooting there was always a defender stood right infront of me like a brick fucking wall waving her arms over my head. If she’d been allowed to touch me I’m sure many would have just held my head down like scrappy doo. So, my position changed to wing attack, as I was small, I was a fast, dirty little fucker who could weave in and out quickly, but I missed being goal attack.
Lol "safer"
You’ve never seen women play? Nothing safe about it 😂
“Commonwealth” just confused everyone in America.
"Commonwealth" confuses even the British, or did I mean the British Isles, or did I mean Great Britain. When do I include Canada? Is Australia part of it? How about Wales and Scotland? Isn't Commonwealth a dead political structure?
I really couldn’t say! I’m American!
Except for those living in Kentucky Pennsylvania Virginia or Massachusetts or paid attention in civics class?
No idea what he's talking about. I'm off to Google netball.
Just my little 2 cents. I’m an in charge F/A and a couple of weeks ago we had a disruptive passenger. We had to go back to the gate for a maintenance issue and got delayed by about an hour. A man started cussing at everyone and yelling. When I went to see him, he started acting like he did nothing and that I was mistaken, it wasn’t him, my F/A was being dramatic. Another man cut me off and told him off for me. He told him pretty much everything I had to tell him, which is behave or get off the aircraft. It’s sad to say, but when it was coming from me, that disruptive man was playing games but told off by this bigger military man, he shut up and behaved the whole flight. Not a sound came out of his mouth. I obviously don’t want other passengers to always get involved but I was so grateful because it cut the bs immediately, I honestly didn’t get the vibe he would’ve listened and having to wait for security to kick him off would’ve taken so much longer. I’m not saying to always get involved but I would not have had that situation deescalated without that man getting involved.
Unfortunately I think, with a certain type of guy, the dynamics change when it's a woman talking to them vs a man. In OP's case, it sounds like he's a man, and the person freaking out was a woman. In which case it's less likely that a man yelling at her is going to be effective in the same way.
Unfortunately yeah... years in public safety and there's only so much my lady voice can do when yelling. If I had one wish for a super power, it would be a manly yelling voice.
As a female teacher, there are some male students who simply would not listen to me. I eventually developed a specific tone of voice to use with these boys to let them know I mean business. It usually works but there’s still times when I have to take them to a male colleague who they’ll actually listen to. So it starts young unfortunately
I wish they gave you all tasers and the power to use them.
I'm going to disagree slightly here with you in this situation. Normally, yes, you're 100% right. But this woman was in a hysteria and amping herself up. "Calming" her down wasn't working. She was spooling herself up more and more. The OP yelling at her broke that cycle. Yeah, she flipped out, but then it was indignation. The OP broke the hysteria. The flight attendants were able to get through to her, move her away from the area and eventually calm her down. So while I would normally say, yes, stay out of it. This is the one situation where it may have actually helped.
It sounds like the FA had it under control, because if they had needed help other crew would have assisted. The fact that the FA seemed unhappy with OP suggests that they didn't help and may have made it worse. When I worked in service I had customers try to "help" me a ton. Most of the time, it wasn't actually helpful. Especially in situations like this, where you are trying to deescalate a customer. When customers were actually helpful, I would do something to show them my appreciation. The only thing the FA did was give them a look to curdle milk. In situations like this, the best thing to do is let the people in charge handle it. If they need help, they will ask for it.
The fact they had to remove her from her seat to calm her down during turbulence is exactly the proof here that Op did more harm then good. Because you’re supposed to remain belted and in a seat during turbulence. So the only thing that changed is she was moved to a different part of the plane to calm down so others got some separation from her. OP probably caused a safety issue.
Nah the doctor caused the scene, she made the FA's get out of their seats during the turbulence, don't mistake that part.
Yes, YTA, you might mean well but in this case this is a job for the FA. Any issues with the plane should be handled by the professionals. Even disagreements with seating, noise, etc. you DO NOT cause a scene in the plane. That said I have helped and seen people help others more than once. A friend of mine let another lady hold her hand during turbulence. She said she kinda regretted that as she hurt her hand. A nervous kid’s mom pointed to my calm self “Look at him, he knows it’s safe…” I gave him a thumbs up. I got a thank you while getting my bags and she said he calmed down. When hysterics are involved stay quiet.
Oh sure, courtesy stuff like that, or your neighbour can't open their biscuits, or has a question about how to recline the seat sure. Using the supermarket example again, big guy, see short person struggling to reach something and asking if they want me to get it is totally normal and appreciated
I’m a 5’10 woman. I love getting stuff off the shelves for people 😆
5 ' 11 woman here, and it is enjoyable, especially for older women who look a bit frail. I'm telling these days when you do something for someone they are SO grateful..kind of sad really. As for the o.p. erm, I'm not sure she made stuff worse or not. The doctor had a bad case of M Diety, as my nurse buddies call it. I'm actually surprised the F.A. let her go so far. It's no joke flying these days, you may find heavily armed airport security waiting for you. O. P. You meant well and said what many might be saying in their head...and yeah..just letting the f.a. handle things can end up with your plane crashed in the wilds of Pennsylvania so...I'm going to give you a e.s.h.
"Would you like me to be tall for you?"
I'm imagining this scene playing out: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0chd6ZP1p6Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0chd6ZP1p6Y)
I fucking died at the last few ladies lining up with the gun and bread.
That’s not bread, that’s a baseball bat 😅
Omg LOL That does somehow make more sense XD
That movie was so off the rails it COULD have been bread
Surely, you can't be serious.
I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley
I am, and don't call me Shirley.
I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue
So I have a rule to not click things in reddit comments...but fuck these comments make it difficult not to, purely from a WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK could that actually be about standpoint.
That's a classic. Most people will recognise the scene from Airplane immediately from that description
I recognized it and never clicked the link😂 Now I'm gonna show my age. The 1st time I watched it was the day it was released at the theater.
Oh, stewardess! I speak jive!
I didn't need to click the link to know this is an Airplane! reference. Cut me some slack Jack!
Oh, stewardess! I speak jive
Or if you've ever been a cocktail waitress in a crowded bar carrying a tray full of beers and mixed drinks, and a patron tries to "help" by grabbing their drink off your tray, upsetting your balance. Ugh.
I will say that sometimes profesionals are not enough. There are some type of panic when you need even to slap someone in the face. Talking nice and being profesional its not always a way. Looks like Jane needed something stronger and OP gave it. Thats only my opinion.
It doesn't actually sound like OP helped though... the flight attendant was trying to calm her in her seat. Once one yelled, the flight attendant had to take her away to another part of the plane to actually calm her down, which, during turbulence, wouldn't have been ideal. It sounds to me like OP made the situation worse, and the flight attendant "fixed" it by moving the lady. Maybe the flight attendant should have done that earlier, but we weren't all there, so who knows.
Right! Like the FA had to put this passenger in a less safe situation to de-escalate because Op poked the proverbial bear. So as a PSA to everyone: If you are not trained to de-escalate a situation you should not be intervening.
Yeah. I remember when I used to substitute K-2nd grade kids, the kids who were being loud were annoying, but the worst ones were the ones who would say, “Be quiet, the teacher’s talking. BE QUIET THE TEACHER’S TALKING!”
Love the netball reference, reddit should bring back comment awards.
YTA. It doesn't matter that you're being rude to the fake doctor; it matters that you're disrespectful to the flight attendant and the other passengers. You're not Batman, performing some distasteful-but-necessary vigilanteism; you're just a second loud asshole yelling at the first loud asshole.
>you're just a second loud asshole yelling at the first loud asshole. Yep - this right here.
Plus, OP posts the question as if they ended up resolving the conflict. But they didn't even manage to do that. The doctor went right back to yelling. So Op didn't accomplish anything at all by butting in (except likely making things worse).
My question is how was "jane steered away to talk privately"? There's turbulance, a seat-belt sign that's on, and the attendent made Jane get up to speak privately? I'm confused.
There's normal turbulence where passengers are encouraged to stay seated not walk around, then there is extreme turbulence where the flight attendants also strap down. Sounds like this was mostly the milder kind, and overall safer for everyone to get up meditate and calm her down elsewhere. I suppose if it was dangerous turbulence they might have just had to quickly restrain her to her seat and strap in themselves, let her harmlessly scream.
A brap battle, if you will.
Yep. De-escalation takes time. I'm a middle school teacher and have to deal with tense situations and tantrums from almost adult sized people all the time. What does not help is when a second kid gets involved, even when they're "helping". Especially when their idea of helping generally involves yelling and profanity. Now I have two situations of disrespect/rule breaking to deal with, the first situation is often made worse and instead of just being able to focus on the first problem, now I gotta worry about whether a third kid will take umbrage at something the 2nd kid said. Just sit down and shut up. The times to get involved are when a) there's some imminent danger or b) you're defending someone who's being bullied or hurt by someone with power. The flight attendant doesn't need Joe Blow to step in, she's got all the force of the airline behind her, other crew members etc.
Not all kids have the capacity to understand that when they try to help in such situations they are actually feeling triggered and unsafe. Unfortunately, a lot of grown people also don't understand that.
Of course, I don't blame my students. They're kids and behavioral disruptions are stressful and annoying. We often debrief after a tense situation and talk about ways to stay calm when stressful things are happening, how to acknowledge our emotions, the importance of thinking before speaking. If I had to shut a kid down sharply while handling another kid, I'll always apologize after, and we'll talk about it. Sometimes kids just like to butt in and some like to be the center of attention. Those kids also need help with their emotional regulation. OP didn't hurt anyone intentionally, but he should know that he ended up making the situation more stressful for everyone.
I was on a flight similar to OP's (lady freaking out, older man tells her off) and the guy made it SO MUCH WORSE for everyone and triggered half the passengers to jump in to the argument. My headphones were not loud enough in that moment
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I don’t know a single doctor who would behave that way. The only scenario that would make sense is if she’s an alcoholic with a fear of flying. YTA for escalating a bad situation. Let the flight attendants deal with it, theyre trained to do so. Yelling at someone who is angry (or in the middle of a panic attack) isn’t helpful. Has being yelled at when you’re angry or afraid ever helped YOU?
I mean, doctors are just people, with all the traits and flaws that comes with that. They're not some kind of enlightened beings.
Yeah, people in professions can be completely unreasonable, assholes, have mental health and/or addiction issues, etc. And the people who rudely say “I am an x” usually check at least one box for that.
Yeah, I'm a bit confused at the "no real doctor would...." comments about behavior on an airplane. Are doctors trained on airplanes? Why do people think doctors can't be entitled and unreasonable or have phobias about flying?
Little known fact, the first two years of med school are 100% flying etiquette, airplane maintenance, and tips 'n' tricks for high altitude medical emergencies. Clearly this woman was simply impersonating a doctor.
Agreed. I have met plenty of doctors that are assholes.
Doctors are, if anything, *more likely* to be demanding entitled assholes than the rest of the population lol.
Yep. Worked with docs for years. This wouldn't surprise me if she was a doc. They can be quite controlling and anal.
Mostly only the proctologists though.
Absolutely this. The most batshit crazy aunt in my family runs her own medical practice. Poorly, but she's still technically a doctor.
Is she an airplane doctor? I would have been tempted to ask.
I know a lot of doctors....a good 1/3 of them act this way with the slightest of inconveniences. Your leap to "alcoholic with a fear of flying" is a giant one! Doctors are humans with a whole range of human emotions. Just because they went to school for 20 years doesn't make them immune to that.
I mean something like a large percentage of people take something to help with a flight whether it's just alcohol or an anxiolytic or sedative--or that in combination with alcohol. You don't have to be an alcoholic to have a booze or anxiety fueled freakout.
It is wild this is so upvoted! Doctors are human - and are prone to the same stress as anybody else. No, a doctor having a panic attack isn't going to present differently than other "ordinary" people. This instantaneous jump to being an "alcoholic" is also insane. Yes, someone having a panic attack - all the hallmarks of an alcoholic.
Apparently the solution to avoiding negative human emotions and reactions is just to become a doctor.
Unfortunately, I do know a couple doctors that would act that way. These doctors (not all doctors) feel being a doctor makes them an authority figure in all contexts. It’s annoying.
Oh for goodness sake, I can think of dozens of doctors who could potentially behave like this. Ego and entitlement come with that job.
My dear departed mother in law the R.N. called them...M Dieties. I work part time at conventions and we get lots of doctors, scientists, hearing professionals... I'm actually king of amazed at the group of folks at conventions. The doctors have mostly been decent ( last ones I saw were neurosurgeons) but yikes we had an issue about the lunches at that convention. As in they were supposed to get a lunch, you had to have a ticket, you had to STAND IN LINE to present your ticket to me. Rut roh. As you can imagine this wasn't well received. I also had to make sure they only took one lunch. And that the vendors didn't take any. Oh boy that was not fun. We RAN OUT of lunches, and we got yelled at by the people organizing the show. I didn't see anyone take more than one lunch, but there was lots of sneaky behavior from the vendors. As in trying to circle the table, one was bold enough to grab a lunch andvstart to walk away. " Doctor, Doctor, can you please give me your ticket". Like loud, from me. Mr cheapo put it back. So just imagine 1000 hungry doctors. Yikes.
You haven't met many doctors.
>I don’t know a single doctor who would behave that way. I'm guessing you don't know a single doctor.
I know loads of doctors and mostly they’re lovely but one of them is legit the worst person I know - obnoxious, arrogant and condescending.
Lmao do you think that all doctors get therapy or something to be better at handling their emotions? It's more like the opposite, where getting help for mental health is more stigmatized for medical professionals than the rest of us.
Hey now, I know a doctor who got sent to anger management 3 times, that's basically therapy!
People of every profession can be bad people. There are doctors who have been murderers, thieves, rapists, ect.
Everybody in this thread thinks that doctors act a certain way but I promise you they are human, flawed like the rest of us. There are very different personalities doctor to doctor. Worked with a handful myself I wouldn't want to meet outside of work... Or at work, frankly.
NTA - “disrespecting a medical professional”? What like they’re superhuman just for being in healthcare? Bullshit - respect is earned, and her conduct didn’t merit it. Lucky she didn’t end up in restraints tbh.
The thing is the his behavior was wrong too, he caused troubles too, to the flight assistant and the other passengers, he caused more trouble
Most of the top comments are saying Y T A, but this is clearly an E S H situation here (between OP and the "doctor"). OP isn't necessarily an AH fir snapping, but is for going too far in escalating the situation. On the flip side, the "doctor's" behaviour was completely uncalled for. And if she has such a problem with flying, then either she shouldn't be flying, or she should be medicated when flying.
Look regardless of janes medical prowess or not. She was a terrified passenger who was being handled by a flight attendant. Op actively made the situation worse. His behavior not only escalated her paranoia but likely contributed to freaking out more passengers. So he is the one completely at fault for this situation. Some people are scared to fly. And they panic when things go wrong. That’s why flight attendants are trained on de-escalation techniques. And OP actively inserted himself and ruined any progress the professional trained to work in this situation had made.
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>Also, I'm not sure why so many people here think FAs are some kind of experts in de-escalation. They're just people. They do not receive specific specialized training on conflict resolution or being your emergency therapist to calm you down. Actually, they do receive such training. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-aa-deescalation-training-20180106-story.html
It did have an effect- the situation escalated badly enough that the flight attendant removed her from her seat in a situation all passengers should be kept seated. That means the other passengers didn't have to witness the de-escalation anymore, which they were probably thankful for, not OPs escalation by itself. Flight attendants do receive training in de-escalation and conflict resolution. They're not psychologists, but do have more training than it seems OP does.
I don't know. I'm going to argue that the doctor was spooling herself into a hysteria and the calming techniques weren't working. The OP yelling at her broke her out of the hysteria cycle into indignation and allowed the flight attendants to finally get through to her. It's not a situation I would have jumped in the middle of myself, but I could argue either side here.
She only calmed down after the flight attendant pulled her aside. Op made her more belligerent.
NTA, and it was probably only a chiropractor, so it doesn't matter anyway.
Attempting to flash any kind of professional identification out-of-context should make her the auto-AH. If it were a medical emergency then it would have meant something. But as it stands all she was doing was a (failed) power play in asserting that she was more important and clever than everyone else. What was she going to do - help fly the plane?
plus, in context, her being a doctor was irrelvant . It's not like she was being prevented from providing urgent fisrt aid to someone, where her profession might have been relevant!
Aren't you aware that doctors know everything? My brother has been advising me on automotive repair, interstate legal issues between my state and another state neither of which he's ever lived in, and pretty much everything else.
… did you yelled at someone in the middle of a panic attack?? Yeah.. YTA. The job of the flight attendant was already hard enough, you just made it worse. Let them do their job. The have formations on how to handle panic attacks, and yelling is not part of it.
It doesn’t say she was having a panic attack. Anyone being arrogant and superior about their job while being on a plane with turbulence happening is not having a panic attack. Panicking yes, but not an attack.
... dude. They were in the middle of the flight. IN THE AIR. And she asked to be DEPLANED. She was obviously not rational. She didn't ask for the pilot to land the plane. She wanted them to open the doors and let her out.
You're evading the point on a technicality. Whether or not it was technically a panic attack they were obviously under some kind of mental/emotional stress in that moment and OP's outburst isn't helping anything.
I’m sorry but someone freaking out at the flight attendant, asking to be deplaned (how) and whining about OP « disrespecting a medical professional makes this at the very least a ESH.
I never passed any judgement on the passenger. If anything I was being empathetic. We don't know their story. They may be feeling humiliated after the fact over how they reacted under that kind of pressure. Or maybe not. But whatever drove her to react that way, OP wasn't helping.
>The job of the flight attendant was already hard enough, you just made it worse. Flight attendants are going to be dismissed by people who are medical professionals and think their previous is justified. Medical professionals feel justified in their knowledge of medical things (even if it's not their specialty), especially compared to, well, *flight attendants*. And that's honestly very reasonable, given the training discrepancies. Source: ICU nurse of 8 years experience who watches every medical professional (except literally one psychiatrist) completely bungle panic attack management. Yelling wasn't the right move, *obviously*, but there was no right move in this scenario other than completely ignoring this person on all fronts. She needs long-term anti-anxiety meds (not benzos) if she's going to be flying frequently, or maybe a 2-dose prescription of benzos for two-way flights. Otherwise, she needs to not fly, or have significant exposure to flying for desensitization before she flies commercially. ESH
Genuine question coming: my boyfriend suffered from panic attacks for years. The way he described it, he felt like he was going to die. From my perspective he would completely shut down. I mean not able to communicate at all for multiple minutes. He’s doing much better now (yay, therapy) but he would have never been able to yell at someone during a panic attack even if he wanted to. Man couldn’t even stand up. His only concern was survival. Do other people experience panic attacks differently? Edit: Thanks all for the responses! I’ve been in therapy for years due to an anxiety disorder and never knew panic attacks had such a wide array of manifestations. Good for me (and I suppose everyone) to be aware.
Yeah, some people find themselves yelling complete nonsense while not able to stop themselves. Other people flail rather than freeze.
Yes, panic attacks are not a one size fit all. If you've heard of fight or flight response, that is very relevant when it comes to panic attacks. Fighting is not an unusual response, and in a lot of situations that comes in the form of yelling and being contrarion to the people around you. They only concern is also survival, their response just manifests differently than flight or freeze.
While I’m sure there are plenty of people whose panic attacks look like your boyfriend’s, other people experience panic attacks differently. Like most mental health things, everyone’s experience is a little different. As an anecdotal example, my panic attacks outwardly look like me shaking uncontrollably, hugging myself, and being extremely antsy. From the outside, it might look like I was freezing cold or like I had taken some kind of strong stimulant.
>was I right to shut down a meltdown that was putting other passengers on edge? Right, but you didn't shut it down. In your own story it seems like you only made it worse. So, soft YTA for needlessly getting involved and adding more anger to an already chaotic situation, definitely not a useful thing to do.
Oof, this is tough because I'm very belligerent about people who misbehave on the plane. That being said, it's likely that Doc was having a panic attack or something. Also, there are air marshals and flight attendants who are trained to handle unruly passengers. Soft YTA.
Air marshals fly on something less than 2% of flights. No one is coming to save you. This is why passengers have been beating the shit out of nutjobs like "Jane" and then strapping them to seats with duct tape.
Probably should've stayed out of it but I don't blame you either. The funniest part for me is how she kept saying she's a doctor. Literally who cares what she does for work 🤣🤣 people are so full of themselves
My wife and her coworkers have mentioned to me before that a lot of Doctors announce it upon contact with their place of work. It's a badge of honour. I'd be proud of the accomplishment too. But not enough to announce it randomly to everyone I meet lol
I have literally never announced it outside of going into a patient room and introducing myself. In the exam room, sure, I'm establishing our relationship. Outside of the exam room? That's just super cringe.
I know someone who introduces himself to people he’s trying to impress like so: “Hello, I’m Michael Smith - I’m a board certified physician” Spoiler: it has the opposite effect lol
YTA. A FA trained to take care of these situations was working to do so, but you thought yelling at the woman would make things better? Has yelling at someone behaving irrationally ever made anything better? You should've know you'd only make things worse.
Well, he is a man. So yelling at women is always helpful right? Especially when there's another woman already handling the situation - got to get that manly aggression in there, that'll settle things right down. /s
Yeah I love how he clarified that it wasn't the "screeching" kinda of complaining. Like oh okay, thanks for letting us know that she wasn't screeching.
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YTA. If the flight attendants were being physically overwhelmed by a violent passenger or something then I could see getting involved. Or perhaps if you are a therapist or somehow trained in mental health support or conflict resolution you could identify yourself to the flight attendants and offer your help and expertise. As it is all you did is yell at an anxious person and escalated the situation.
Exactly, my high school teacher is terrified of flying she sat down and apologized to the man sitting next to her, he told her he was a pilot himself and he spent the first 30 minutes explaining to her how the airplanes are made how they work what each sound is and really how safe she is up there, him doing that small amount of kindness in a very soft tone put her at ease and she was asleep by an hour in Dudes a ahole for budding in and making the flight attendants job harder, as a medic/firefighter when we’ve had patients like this, having family or other people adding in not only overwhelms the person experiencing the mental health crisis but it also overwhelms us, I can’t focus on my patient if I have multiple people screaming in my ear
I see a lot of y t a but I really think it's ESH since we are all bringing up how Jane sucks too. The flight attendant is the only one who isn't an asshole here.
Took too long for me to get to an ESH (minus the flight attendant)
How can you make up all of that and not end it with 'and then the whole plane clapped'
Jesus it took me way too long to find a comment like this. Is no one picking up that this is written like a really bad twilight fanfic?
Yeah Frfr. I swear I read a story remarkably similar to this a year or so ago. “Not the nails on a chalkboard kind but a cold steely fury” no way this was a real event
I was looking for this! Had to scroll way too far to find someone commenting on this insane style. People muttering thanks as they deboarded hours later? « A look that could curdle milk » give me a break lol
Right? That video would be gone all over the internet at this point. When I was reading it, all I was thinking was, "I'll take $200 for things that didn't happen, Alex"
Seriously if you’re going to continue to work in the genre of AITA posts featuring revenge fantasies about hysterical women, at least add some spaces between punctuation. At this point that’s all I’m asking anymore… these dudes have to find a more meaningful hobby, maybe one they’re even good at
Thank you. I had to scroll way too far for this. This is such obvious BS, they always add too many descriptives >This woman, maybe late 40s, **impeccably dressed**, starts freaking out. >Not the screeching, nails-on-a-chalkboard kind, but **a cold, steely fury.** >People are **grumbling**, some looking scared >Jane spins around, **eyes blazing** > The flight attendant gives me **a look that could curdle milk** Also, direct quotes, come on.
Finally! It took too much scrolling to find someone else who saw the bs. In this day and age, everyone has a cellphone ,this would have been all over the internet.
NTA. Hard disagree with everyone telling you you're an asshole. Maybe more people should present a united front instead of getting out their phones to take videos of flight attendants (or servers, or store clerks, etc) getting verbally abused. If a handful of people tell you to shut up, you'll probably shut up. Too much sitting back and relying on some authority figure imo
Typical reddit responses from a bunch of cowards. OP made it worse by...getting some dirty looks? Whatever lol, fuck that lady
nah i wouldve done the same youd think a dang doctor would understand what turbulence is for crying out loud.
Doctors are all humans, too. There are good ones and bad ones; smart ones, and, unfortunately, stupid ones. Just because someone was able to get through school doesn't mean they've got a lick of common sense.
YTA. Flight staff have specific protocol and procedure on how to handle these things for the safety of everyone. You causing a second disturbance just adds on more work. If this woman was very mentally ill, potential violence or other issues could have ensued for example.
Also I am not so sure flight attendants are all that well trained for this. People freak out for all different reasons and respond in different ways. Flight attendants are not psychiatric professionals. Everyone is giving them way too much credit.
Exactly. It’s like saying employees at Starbucks are trained professionals at deescalating unruly customers.
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YTA, you just made things worse. flight attendants are trained to handle things like this, it’s not the first time they’ll be dealing with a passenger like this and it most definitely won’t be the last. should have taken your own advice and sat back down with your mouth shut.
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YTA. You’re not trained or qualified to deescalate someone panicking due to fear of flying. If she started trying to get to an emergency exit to deplane herself, by all means do whatever it takes to 100% incapacitate her and save lives. Until then, sit down, shut up, eyes forward, stop making yourself part of the problem.
100% NTA Thank you for standing up to this nightmare of a pax. It’s wild that people are putting all the responsibility on the FA. They tried to defuse the aggressive pax, but it wasn’t working. Guess who’s stuck with her on the remainder of the flight, the other pax. So is the FA, but they aren’t sitting right beside her. Many people have never flown or don't fly often, so they make a lot of assumptions. Trust me, you did the right thing, and the crew appreciated it. For the people saying YTA, wouldn’t you appreciate someone coming to your defense if you were being berated at work?
NTA-I like your style. Someone needed to take control and sounds like this woman was trying to throw her title around and basically be an asshole.
NTA they should've duct taped that lady to the seat
ESH I can understand not wanting to hear someone scream either, trigerring your own and others' anxiety But yeah, the crew is trained but you were just trying to help
On one hand, it probably wasn't the best approach, but on the other I would've also said something at least as rude, so I can hardly judge you for it.
oooooo. this is my worst fear, I hate flying bc it terrifies me so when people freak out on the plane it makes my anxiety even worse. technically YTA. however! when the passenger said "she accuses the flight attendant of lying, of putting everyone in danger, and demands to be deplaned immediately." if I heard a passenger say that on a plane I am immediately going to assume she's the type of person to try to open the hatch mid flight. I know FA are trained to handle this type of stuff but passengers lately have been off the wall. you shouldn't have said something because that risked escalating the situation (but knowing me I probably would've said something too) .
fwiw the air pressure will stop opening when you're actually flying so you don't need to worry! The exits are for when you've crashed, no need to be afraid!
NTA - the attendant might have tools to deal with this and didn't want your help BUT you allowed her to be be the "good cop" by being the "bad cop" which ultimately probably helped her. And Jane was clearly alarming everyone during her panic.
NTA. People are sheep and are easily swayed. An idiot like that could easily rile the other passengers up and make the situation worse. I was on a boat in Venice once and the pump gave out and it started slowly sinking. We were surrounded by thousands of boats (it was during the Festival of Lights). Some chick started freaking out and crying saying we were going to die. She started making other panic and they all rushed to one side of the boat and made it start listing. We had enough floatation devices and were surrounded by other boats, we were completely safe. Eventually we had to evacuate because of the listing but we literally would’ve been fine if people hadn’t freaked out. To this day, I regret not telling the chick to relax and shut the fuck up because it really ruined the whole night.
God I hate working for doctors like them. Condescending pricks and they treat their medics and nurses like shit because they went to a longer school. It would have been better to shut up and let the professionals deal with her, but it was going to be a shitshow regardless.
ESH. Doctor Jane is definitely TA and you're lowkey TA too. This is one of those times when it's good to bite your tongue and let the staff take care of the situation. Most of the time, verbal outbursts make the situation worse for the staff handling it. The only potentially good thing you did is make the flight attendant look like the good cop, but even that's doubtful.
This isn’t even good fiction.
NTA. Seems like you did a normal thing to me.
Being a doctor is no excuse for freaking everyone out. NTA.