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A woman who fractured her ankle during a seatbelt mishap while on a JetBlue flight en route to the Bahamas has sued the airline for failing to provide adequate medical attention.
Long Island resident Maria Mistretta was flying with her husband to the Bahamas from John F. Kennedy International Airport on July 23, 2022, when she accidentally injured her ankle while on the flight.
Lawsuit documents obtained by The Independent claim that Mistretta got up from her seat and stepped into the aisle when her foot "became entangled in a hanging seatbelt, or other object causing her to fall backwards”.
“As she fell backwards, plaintiff’s foot twisted and cracked, and [Mistretta] landed on her back with her foot still tangled in the low hanging object,” the documents added.
After the incident, Mistretta and her husband, Salvatore Mistretta, allege they asked the flight crew for a first aid kit and some ice, but were told by members of the crew that “everything was packed up” and “inaccessible” for the remainder of the flight, the suit says.
The lawsuit also claimed that the crew told the couple they would need to wait for all other passengers to disembark the aircraft before they could, but at the point they were allowed off, the airline could only provide a “broken” wheelchair that lacked proper support for her legs.
The couple claims in the court documents that once they landed at their destination in Nassau, JetBlue personnel advised against calling an ambulance and instead advised returning to New York for medical evaluation.
By doing so, this meant the couple had to book a return flight, go through customs and security and relocate to multiple gate changes “without assistance” and “all in the same broken wheelchair”, the documents said.
At the departing gate, the couple asked the JetBlue personnel for ice and a bandage, but they told them that they did not have access to these. Once on their flight home, they were allegedly “again denied assistance” by JetBlue staff, the lawsuit claims.
They were told, according to the suit, that “to open the first aid kit onboard their return flight, an incident report would need to be filled out and since their accident did not occur on the current flight, a report would not be filled out to provide access to the first aid kit on board”.
Once back in New York, personnel in an emergency room diagnosed Mistretta with a right ankle fracture, deep vein thrombosis to her right leg, and aggravation of a previous back injury, according to the lawsuit.
The couple are seeking $170,000 in damages in relation to the seatbelt incident during the flight.
The Independent has contacted JetBlue, their attorney and Mistretta’s attorney for comment.
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