Missing a flight can be quite a hassle for your average passenger, but for Pebbles – an emotional support dwarf hamster owned by Belen Aldecosea – it was downright deadly.
Aldecosea flushed Pebbles down an airport toilet after her pet was denied passage on a Spirit Airlines flight on 21 November and she could not figure out any other way to get home to south Florida. The 21-year-old college student said that she had been assured in advance that the hamster could travel with her and said that an airline employee advised her to either flush the animal or let it loose outside.