A United Airlines passenger who had "biohazard diarrhea" which caused flight cancellations has blamed an undercooked hamburger for the drama.

Actress Meghan Reinertsen, 29, from Atlanta, Georgia, said she spent 90 minutes locked inside the lavatory during the July 2024 flight from Newark to Indianapolis.

She went public about the ordeal via TikTok one month ago, then gave more details during an interview with the Daily Mail on Thursday.The news comes as an urgent recall was issued for six salad products over food poisoning fears.

Reinertsen revealed her key mistake was taking a few bites of a bloody patty that left her violently food poisoned.

"I had eaten part of an undercooked burger hours before I left to get back to Indiana," she said.

"I only took a couple of bites because I was like, "oof, that's really undercooked"."

She said she bought the burger at the resort where she had been staying as a nanny for a family on vacation at the time.

"I don't want to out the resort," she said. "It was a really nice hotel."

The first signs something was wrong came as she strolled through the airport before her final connection, a two-hour flight.

"My stomach was rumbling," she told the Daily Mail. "I was like, "this is... different".

"But it really wasn't until I got on the second flight that the pain kicked in. I was like, "this is not good".

In her TikTok video about the nightmare, she said that within 30 minutes of take-off she was drenched in sweat, crying and doubled over in pain.

Fearing she'd end up like the infamous Delta passenger who soiled herself mid-flight, Reinertsen made it to the bathroom just in time.

"For the next 20 minutes I had more diarrhea than any human should ever have in their life," she said, adding that she soon started vomiting as well.

Panicking in the tiny, claustrophobic space, she yelled for help from flight attendants, who handed her bags.

The crew allowed her to remain in the bathroom for the entire flight, securing special clearance from the pilot so she could stay there for landing.

Reflecting on the incident, Meghan said: "A flight attendant comes over and says, 'Everybody's off the plane now, go ahead and take your time and come out when you can, the next flight has been cancelled.' In the moment, I'm not thinking it is because of me."

She was then informed by the flight attendant that a hazmat team would be arriving to clean up her mess.

"Got it, so you cancelled that flight because of me...because you don't know if I brought something back from Portugal. And I am a biohazard. I am patient zero."

Meghan shared her experience publicly on TikTok last month. She revealed that the incident occurred in July 2024 but it was so mortifying that she has struggled with travel since then.

The video has been viewed more than 20 million times on Meghan's TikTok account.