After getting stranded in Florida while on a work trip due to Hurricane Sally, Rachel Davis was relieved to finally be heading back home Manchester, New Hampshire, with her two-year-old son, Lyon. As she boarded an American Airlines flight last Thursday (September 17), her "overtired" son refused to wear a mask. A flight attendant informed Davis that if she couldn't get Lyon to put on a mask, they would have to get off the plane.

"I tried repeatedly, begged him, bribed him, pleaded with him, did everything I could while he was screaming and crying as I tried to hold him and put the mask on, feeling my absolute lowest of lows as a mother," Davis wrote on Instagram.

Despite her best efforts, Lyon refused to keep his mask on, and the flight crew ordered all the passengers to deplane. The way the airline handled the situation upset many of the passengers.

"It was very cold and cruel," fellow passenger Taylor Cournoyer told ABC News. "This wasn't an issue of a grown adult not complying out of spite because they don't agree with masks -- this was a child. And it was not a bad, irresponsible mom either -- she was crying and trying to keep the mask on and asking the flight attendants for help and advice on what to do."

Cournoyer also shared a video of Davis pleading with the crew for understanding.

"I don't know what you want me to do to keep the mask on him," Davis said through tears in the video. "What do you want me to do -- duct tape his face? He's 2 years old, he doesn't get it!"

Mark Madden

About Mark Madden