A disfigured nurse says Southwest Airlines threw her off a flight because of benign tumors growing on her face and body.
Briana Solari was taken off the flight from Burbank-Hollywood Airport in Los Angeles to her home in Sacramento on Thursday evening shortly after surgery to shrink the tumors that left her with visible scars.
Solari, whose tumors are caused by a condition called neurofibromatosis (NF) that causes them to grow over nerve endings, said KCRA that a Southwest Airlines flight attendant approached her after she boarded and asked her to return to the gate.
“I got off the plane and they said, ‘Well, there are some concerns. Do you have any medical conditions, illnesses?’ And I said, ‘No, I had surgery.’”
Briana Solari, pictured, was removed from a Southwest flight from Burbank to Sacramento after flight attendants feared non-cancerous tumors on her face could be contagious
“It’s really none of their business, but I said, ‘No, I had surgery,’ and they said, ‘Okay,’ so he called someone.”
Solari says the flight attendant called a doctor contracted with Southwest Airlines, who had never examined her.
Southwest staff refused to allow her to speak to the doctor to explain her condition, Solari said.
The tragedy caused the nurse to miss her flight home and she was very upset about her health condition, causing people to make unkind comments.
She said, ‘Humiliated, ashamed, embarrassed?
Solari says living with her condition, called neurofibromatosis, is stressful — and the behavior of Southwest staff has added to her suffering
The nurse received a total of $545 in vouchers from Southwest, but she never wants to fly with the airline again and now plans to file a lawsuit
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‘It’s hard enough. It’s hard enough with this condition, because I had visible tumors on my face and arms, and people reacted.
“It’s really hard to quantify what it’s like to be singled out for a medical condition, for the way you look. Something that I really can’t do anything about. And I’ve tried to hide it as best I can.”
Solari was eventually able to fly home on a later flight with Southwest after producing a letter from her surgeon stating that her condition was not contagious.
Southwest gave Solari a $500 flight voucher and a $45 meal voucher.
However, she was so disgusted by the experience that she has vowed never to set foot on one of their planes again, and she plans to file a lawsuit as well.
Solari said: ‘I don’t think I’ll ever fly it again. I think it could have been handled much more professionally.
“They should have waited until they had all the information before making a decision that ultimately impacted my day, my flight, my travels, and my overall perspective on Southwest has changed.
‘This is pure discrimination! Violation of my medical privacy.’
“They don’t need to know that I just said I had surgery, and that should be it. They shouldn’t be snooping on my private medical information.”
A Southwest spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘We are shocked by the customer’s experience on the flight and offer our deepest apologies for the inconvenience.
Although our team was eventually given permission to allow the client to travel, we were unable to do so in time for the flight’s departure.
‘We have rebooked her on a later flight, offered her a travel voucher for a future flight, along with a meal voucher, and we will contact her directly to discuss the situation.