A man was so keen to get home after the holidays that he didn’t even notice he had been injured during his flight—until he saw the reactions of everyone around him.
Todd Holland-Matney, 41, was flying home to Kansas City, Missouri, with his husband after a trip to Phoenix when the trip took an unexpected turn.
“I was sitting in about the third row and the plane was finishing boarding. We check our bags so our overhead was pretty empty still,” he explained.
When a woman boarded the flight, she used the overhead above Holland-Matney to store her bag—but as she did so, a Stanley 1913 bottle fell from her bag and whacked him in the head.
But while the woman was “profusely apologizing” to him, Holland-Matney wasn’t even aware anything had happened, and just told her it was okay, as “I just wanted her to sit down and stop all the attention around me.”
“I didn’t feel it until I put my hand up after everyone around me gasped, when she left after saying ‘I’m so sorry’ over and over!” he said.
“When she moved, everyone around me was like ‘Dude, that’s not OK, you need some ice now. I put my hand on [my head] and was like ‘Oh, my,’ and turned to my husband, and he said, ‘yeah, that’s bad.'”
While Holland-Matney himself didn’t even notice the cup falling on his head, he was told by others it was a “full Stanley cup,” as he shared to his Threads account, @thetodd1984, on January 5.
“I thought I was fine but others around me saw this within 30 seconds of impact and freaked out,” he wrote—and shared a photo of the major bump on his head that formed immediately after getting hit.
In the photo, Holland-Matney looks into the camera, and on the side of his head, close to his temple, a large, bruised bump has sprung.
He shared in the post: “I didn’t want to get off for medical assistance or delay the flight. The nice attendant said I have the power at any moment to turn the flight around if needed.”
“The flight attendants were very nice. The gate check person came on and had to take my ticket to document an accident,” he recalled to Newsweek. “They asked if I wanted medical to look at it and I said I really just wanted to get home and not delay anyone else’s trip either.”
Praising the Southwest Airlines staff, he said he was given “an ice bag, Tylennol and a water,” and was told that if at any time he was feeling unwell, “tell the captain and they will turn this plane around.”
Holland-Matney got home safely, and after holding ice on the bump during the entire flight, said it is now “so much better looking than I expected.”
“Everyone involved handles it well, and it is healing much faster and looking way better than I thought it would so soon after!”
His story had a big response online, with close to 3,000 people liking his Threads post, one suggesting: “I bet the sound it made was pretty cool,” but Holland-Matney replying: “I was told it was pretty loud but I honestly do not remember.”
“Is that a bump, or a dent—or a bump and a dent?” another asked, while one described it: “Damn, that is one helluva knot on the skull there.”
As for the culprit itself, Holland-Matney told Newsweek: “I do own a Stanley mug as well. I guess it would make a pretty good weapon if filled with liquid!”
Stanley steel vacuum bottles are massively popular, and range in size from travel mugs to large water bottles, which can be heavy, particularly when filled with liquid. Invented in 1913 by inventor William Stanley Jr, the bottles exploded in popularity on social media.
Newsweek has contacted Southwest Airlines and Stanley 1913 for comment on this story.
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