A widower is suing an airline after his morbidly obese wife died while abroad because she was denied a spot on three different flights last year due to her size. The New York widower, Janos Soltesz is asking fro $6 million in the lawsuit.
According to Reuters, Janos Soltesz was at his vacation home in Hungary with his wife, Vilma Soltesz for several weeks last year. Vilma weighed 425 pounds and suffered from diabetes and kidney failure. She also had an amputated leg which left her wheelchair-bound.
Soltesz had to go home to receive treatment for her kidney disease, so she booked a flight back on a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight. When she tried to board the plane, the captain told the couple to disembark as she was unable to get her wheelchair to her assigned seat.
The couple had no issue when they flew to Budapest on a Delta Air Lines plane in September.
The couple waited at the Budapest airport for more than five hours to see if they could catch another flight. They then made arrangements to catch a Delta flight in Prague, which assured them that it would be able to accommodate Vilma. The couple drove to Prague and Vilma was told that the airline didn't have the proper equipment to transport Vilma to her seat.
"The Delta flight coordinator told Janos and Vilma that Delta 'did not have access to a skylift' to get Vilma onto the aircraft from the rear, and that there was nothing more Delta could do for them," the lawsuit stated, according to Reuters.
Vilma and Janos tried once again to get on another flight on October 22. Vilma was booked on a Lufthansa flight and firefighters and medics tried to help her board the plane, but the captain told the couple that they couldn't fly because "other passengers need to catch a connecting flight and cannot be delayed further," the lawsuit said.
The couple went back to their vacation home is Veszprem, Hungary and Vilma, who was already sick, was exhausted from the ordeal. She went to sleep and her husband found her dead on October 24.
Janos Soltesz has filed a lawsuit against all three airlines for wrongful death and gross negligence in federal court in New York.
Detla Air Lines told Reuters that they have not yet seen the lawsuit and Royal Dutch Airlines and Lufthansa did not return comments.
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