Emirates fires Aussie flight attendant because she fell down the stairs on the job

It’s hard enough to have an accident at work, especially if you come out of it seriously hurt. But to be fired because of it? That’s a whole other level of humiliation.

That’s what happened to 23-year-old Ciara Burke, who was only a few days away from becoming a fully-fledged flight attendant when she fell down a set of stairs in her uniform’s red heels at an Emirates’ training facility in Dubai.

The fall resulted in severe but temporary injuries to her back, leg, and ankle – she had her foot put in a cast, then a moon boot.

The end of her probation period rolled around, and after a few days of sick leave attending doctor’s appointments, she returned to work – but, there was no job offer on the table from Emirates.

“It just felt like I was watching someone else’s life. At no point did I ever, ever think that this was going to happen to me,” Ms Burke told Fairfax.

Initially after the accident, Ms Burke says that Emirates supported her and told her to “take care of [her]self”, paying her Dubai medical costs.

She’d spent almost six months working on flights to Europe, Africa and the Middle East before her fall, so surely her ‘professionalism’ and ‘amazing communication skills’ – as professed by her colleagues – would forgive her this accidental slip-up…

Source: Airline reportedly sends flight attendant packing after workplace injury