New video shows how a man who was bleeding from his head after a hair transplant was arrested along with his wife after they refused to get off of a flight in Miami on Tuesday.
Eugenio Hernandez boarded the American Airlines plane bound to Las Vegas with a bleeding forehead and wrapped in bandages. He said he was cleared to fly by his doctor, and had paperwork saying so, but flight attendants told him to leave after seeing his bloody head.
The couple refused.
In the new video, Hernandez can be seen arguing with authorities, pointing again to a paper saying he was cleared to fly, issued by the Care4Hair clinic, which he said performed the procedure.
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The officer says the pilot still does not want him on board.
"My question is... are you going to come with us now so the flight can get on their way?" the officer asks.
When Hernandez tries to talk back to the officer, he orders the flight to deplane.
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Video later shows Hernandez leaving the gate in handcuffs.
Hernandez described what happened when he was released from jail Tuesday night.
“I have a lot of pain. I have pain here and pain here on the head,” he said.
Hernandez said he flew from Las Vegas to Miami to get a hair transplant and liposuction. But when he and his wife were on their flight back home, he said passengers alerted flight attendants with concerns about him bleeding and his medical condition.
“You need to go out because somebody don’t like what you have on your head,” Hernandez said he was told.
Hernandez provided NBC6 a paper from his doctor stating that he was cleared to fly and go back to work with no restrictions.
The flight attendant told him she didn’t care, he said, and the situation escalated.
“She tells me you either go out, or I’m gonna call the police. I said, call the police, because that’s injustice. I paid my flight. I don’t have nothing illegal in my packet. Everything is fine,” Hernandez said.
His wife, Yusleydis Loyola, who also got cosmetic surgery, went live on TikTok while thousands watched.
Police said the couple was arrested for refusing to comply after multiple warnings.
“This could have all been avoided if they would have just followed the commands or the request of the officers to vacate the aircraft," Miami-Dade County police spokesperson Argemis Colomé said.
The couple hired a lawyer, Michael Iglesia, to fight the charges.
“We believe that obviously they were discriminated against because of how they looked following a medical procedure that was necessary," he said. “They showed that clearance to American... They went through security without a problem, American then allowed them onto the flight and in fact, gave them priority onto the flight to help assist them and to make it more convenient and it was only after other passengers complained of their appearance that they were asked to get off the flight.”
Care4Hair declined to provide a statement to our sister station Telemundo 51, but did say they had published a video on Instagram explaining patients could not fly the same day as a hair transplantation. Hernandez's paper, however, is signed and dated the same day of his surgery.
The couple was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest.
American Airlines said in a statement: “During boarding of American Airlines flight 1858 on Aug. 19 with service from Miami (MIA) to Las Vegas (LAS), two customers became disruptive and were non-compliant with crew member instructions. Law enforcement responded and removed both customers from the aircraft. We thank our crewmembers for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
