Cancer patient kicked off flight

Attention, Alaska Airlines: Cancer isn’t contagious.

Elizabeth Sedway, 51, of Granite Bay, Calif., was kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight from Hawaii this week after an airline employee insisted she needed a doctor’s note to fly.

She writes on Facebook that the airline became alarmed because she had a surgical mask on.

Today, we were at gate 8 ready to depart on Alaska Airlines for San Jose. An airline employee saw me seated in the handicap section of the boarding area. She asked me if I needed anything. The first time. I said no. The second time, O said, well I might need a bit of extra time to board, sometimes I feel weak.

Because I said the word weak, the Alaska Airlines employee called a doctor, she claimed was associated with the airlines. After we board the plane. An Alaska representative boarded the plane, and told us I could not fly without a note from a doctor stating that I was cleared to fly. The video is of us being removed from the plane.

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(Video link)

The airline apologized yesterday and said things could have been handled differently. Sedway says she’ll donate the fare the airline refunded to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

According to the video, not a single passenger spoke up for her.