United flight delayed for hours after a scorpion 'emerged from a customer's clothing'

Just weeks after a giant bunny mysteriously died in the cargo hold of a United Airlines flight, the airline was plagued with yet another animal-related fiasco. A United flight from Houston to Ecuador was delayed for more than three hours Friday after a scorpion "emerged from a customer's clothing," United said in a statement.

United confirmed that the passenger was not stung. Paramedics arrived at the gate to examine the customer, and United said he "declined further treatment." "[A]s a precaution, a new aircraft was arranged," United said.

This is the second time in a month that United Airlines has had to deal with a scorpion aboard one of its planes. In April, a man on a flight from Houston to Calgary was stung by a scorpion that fell out of an overhead bin. "My husband felt something in his hair. He grabbed it out of his hair and it fell onto his dinner table. As he was grabbing it by the tail it stung him," the man's wife said. A flight attendant apparently flushed the scorpion down the airplane toilet.

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That scorpion incident happened on the same day that a seated customer was forcefully removed from an overbooked flight, sparking international outrage. A month before that, United caught flak after refusing to let two girls wearing leggings board a flight because of its dress code for its employees and their guests.