A Kennesaw man is suing Delta airlines after he said a 12-hour flight on Delta Airlines caused a blood clot that almost killed him.

Channel 2’s Diana Davis spoke with the man about what he said led to his scary health emergency.

Jordan Pajares was on a non-stop flight from Peru to Atlanta a little over a year ago when he said a child passenger had a medical emergency. The plane landed in Ecuador and what was supposed to be just a 30-minute stop to get the child off the plane, turned into about three hours of sitting on the tarmac.

He said he was crammed in the middle of the seat unable to move and began to feel intense pain in his legs.

“Numbness first, then I realized that my feet were swelling,” Pajares said.

Pajares told the flight attendant about the unusual activity happening to his body, but the flight attendant would not let him get up and move except for one trip to the bathroom.

When Pajares finally landed in Atlanta, he says his condition got worse.

“My veins in both legs were popped out like varicose veins and I was like, ‘This is not normal, this is weird,’” he said.

He developed a cough a day or two later and began coughing up blood. He says hospital doctors said a blood clot in his leg probably formed during the long flight. The clot lodged in Pajares’ lungs, nearly killing him. The condition is called “deep vein thrombosis.” It can lead to clots moving to the brain, heart and lungs.

Pajares’ lawyer claims cases like his client’s are becoming more common as airline seats become more crammed.

“When someone is complaining about leg pain, the proper response is to get blood circulating and moving and the best way to do that is to have them walk, extend their legs, rough flex exercise,” Johnson said.

Davis called Delta for a response to the lawsuit. A spokesperson emailed her that they were looking into it, but were unable to comment on litigation.