The man who was dragged off a United Airlines flight last weekend lost his two front teeth and suffered a concussion from the incident, his lawyer said during a Chicago news conference on Thursday, April 13. Watch what his lawyer and daughter had to say in the video above.
As previously reported, Dr. David Dao was physically removed from his seat by security when he refused to leave. United Airlines randomly selected Dao, 69, and three other customers — who had already paid — to give up their seats for four of their employees.
Dao reportedly hit his head on his arm rest at the time. He bled and was pulled down the aisle as his stomach was exposed. On Thursday, Dao’s lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, also said that the physician suffered a broken nose and damaged sinuses. He has been released from the hospital and is staying in a “secure” location.
“Dr. Dao, I believe to his great credit, has come to understand that he is the guy, he’s the guy to stand up for passengers going forward,” Demetrio said.
Dao’s daughter Crystal Pepper also spoke out at the conference. “What happened to my dad should never have happened to any human being, regardless of the circumstances,” she said.
According to Demetrio, neither United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz nor other officials from the company have reached out to Dao in the aftermath. Munoz spoke with Good Morning America about the situation earlier this week.
“This will never happen again,” he said in an ABC interview, which aired on Wednesday. “It was a system failure. We have not provided our frontline supervisors and managers and individuals with the proper procedures that would allow them to use their common sense. They all have an incredible amount of common sense and this issue could have been solved by that. This is on me; I have to fix that, and I think that’s something we can do.”
