The doctor who was filmed being dragged kicking and screaming from a United Airlines flight earlier this week turns out to be successful poker amateur Dr David Dao, who has tournament winnings of over $260,000 including a 2nd place worth $117,244 in a 2009 WSOP Circuit event.
Video of 69-year old Dao went viral this week, showing airline security dragging him from a plane after he refused to leave the over-booked passenger jet bound for Louisville Kentucky from Chicago. Dao’s face was bloodied and other passengers can be heard screaming at the guards to stop.
It has also been revealed in the wake of the incident that the Vietnamese-born doctor was found guilty in 2003 of ‘trading drugs for sex as part of a downfall that derailed his medical career’, according to Heavy.com and other sources. Originally facing 98 charges in relation to his activities, he was eventually found guilty of only six of those Including “complicity in obtaining a controlled substance (hydrocodone) by fraud” and was given a suspended sentence of two year and eight months in prison and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.
Three years later, Dao –with several 6-figure cashes to his name throughout the US - scored his biggest poker win when he scooped $117,244 for finishing 2nd in the $5k buy-in WSOP Circuit Championship event at Harrah's Tunica Casino in Robinsonville, although he has failed to match such payouts in the years since, his most recent tournament winnings of $1,191 again coming in Tunica in January of this year, according to his Hendon Mob profile.
Dao eventually had his MD credentials partially reinstated in March of last year, after undergoing ‘extensive educational classes and evaluations by psychologists’ and it is reported that four of his five children are also doctors. He can be heard on the viral video stating that his refusal to leave the plane in Chicago’s O’Hare International was because he had patients to see the following day in Kentucky.
The United Airlines CEO has attracted criticism today after a private email to employees was made public, Oscar Munoz defending the crew's actions, stating that Dr Dao was 'disruptive and belligerent' and praising his staff for going 'above and beyond' the call of duty.