On Sunday, while Richard Bell was flying home to Calgary after a two-week vacation in Mexico, he felt something drop into his hair, apparently from the overhead bins above. It was, he told Global News, a scorpion. Bell initially dropped it, before picking it up again and—perhaps predictably—getting stung. 

That’s when another passenger intervened, stomped on the arachnid when it reached the ground, and disposed of it in the plane’s toilet. This was unfortunate, Bell said, “because when we landed everyone wanted to see it.”

Bell was treated by medical personnel after the plane landed, but the injury, which he compared to a wasp sting, was not serious. The story might not have gotten much play outside of Calgary if Bell had patronized a different airline. He was flying with United Airlines, which, you probably already know, has had a very bad week.