7-year-old girl ravaged by bedbugs – and you'll never guess where it happened
You might not be surprised to find bed bugs in a cheap hotel or dodgy hostel, but you certainly don’t expect to find them before you even arrive at your destination.
That’s exactly what happened to 38-year-old Heather Szilagyi, who claims she and her 7-year-old daughter were left bleeding after being ravaged by the critters while flying to London Heathrow Airport with British Airways.
According to Heather, despite informing cabin crew that her seat (and those surrounding her) were crawling with bed bugs, they were unable to reseat her, her daughter and her fiancé Eric.
The family from Vancouver had been on their way to Slovakia with a stopover in London when they first spotted the bugs.
“It was about half-an-hour to an hour into the flight I saw one. It was coming out of the back of the TV screen. It came out of that and I wanted to get it with a Kleenex but it crawled back in," Heather recalled.
“Our food came out and I went to put the tray down on my lap. I saw what was maybe a flax seed – but it started moving – it was a bug," Heather added.
“Once we got to the Airbnb that we were staying in, we went to sleep. My daughter had a few bites on her thighs but when she woke up she was covered, she had them all over. It was just so bad and awful, my daughter was bleeding.”
Heather told The Sun the experience has “ruined” their trip after the family were forced to spend hours washing themselves, their clothes and tending to their sores.
“We just want to make sure that aeroplane is taken care of and so we just want to make sure that we have a flight tomorrow morning, and we have to get back into another BA flight. We just want to get on a plane that doesn’t have fabric seats, or maybe another partner airline," Heather said.
A spokesperson for the airline told The Sun they have "said sorry" to the family, claiming that reports of bed bugs on board their planes are “extremely rare”.
“Nevertheless, we are vigilant and continually monitor our aircraft. The presence of bed bugs is an issue faced occasionally by hotels and airlines all over the world."
Image credit: The Sun.