Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 7, 1990 TAG: 9004070122
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I've got emphysema and it's right bad," said Fitzgerald, a retired locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern. "I can smell a cigarette a block away."
So when Fitzgerald planned a vacation to the Bahamas two years ago, he made sure to request a non-smoking seat on the airplane.
But, he said, "I got on that doggone plane and they were smoking from one end to the other."
Friday, Fitzgerald filed a $175,000 lawsuit against USAir Inc., claiming the airline failed to keep its promise when it sold him a seat in a non-smoking section.
The suit, filed in Roanoke Circuit Court, states that USAir "negligently allowed heavy smoking in a non-smoking area of the aircraft."
For Fitzgerald, the smoke was more than a nuisance. It almost killed him, he said.
One day after he returned home from his vacation in April 1988, Fitzgerald suffered a bronchial flare-up that put him in the intensive care unit of Roanoke Memorial Hospital for 10 days.
USAir officials could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
Fitzgerald, a former smoker himself, said he hopes his lawsuit will make people understand the importance of establishing - and enforcing - non-smoking zones in public areas.
"A lot of people get kind of mad" when restrictions are placed on smoking, he said. "But they don't understand the other people's problems. You'd be an idiot to sit there and choke on somebody else's smoke."
And Fitzgerald said USAir, which was Piedmont Airlines at the time of his trip, should have been more responsive when he complained that smoke was bothering him.
"They just ignored me," he said. "I said something to the hostess and she said she couldn't do anything about it."
The flight attendant told Fitzgerald that on the following Monday, smoking would be banned on two-stop flights such as his Roanoke to Charlotte to Miami connection, he said.
"I think everybody was trying to see how many cigarettes they could smoke by Monday," he said. "I said: `This is Friday and it's killing me now.' "
On his return trip to Roanoke, airline officials seated Fitzgerald in the very back of the plane, right next to the emergency door. "If [the door] had blown open I'd have been the first one in orbit," he said.
Even so, Fitzgerald said smoking on the return trip was worse than before. The experience has left him and his family reluctant to travel.
"We want to go someplace again," he said, "but we're scared."
by CNB