This story from ABC news:
An American Airlines passenger died after a flight attendant first
refused to help administer oxygen and then tried to help her with
faulty equipment, including an empty oxygen tank, a relative said.The airline wasn’t saying much Sunday night, but confirmed the flight
death and said medical professionals had tried to save the passenger,
Carine Desir, who was returning home to Brooklyn from Haiti.Desir had heart disease. She died of natural causes, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said Sunday.
Desir said she was not feeling well and was very thirsty on the Friday flight from Port-au-Prince.
Don’t believe everything you hear people. I am a flight attendant with American and the coverage of this incident was completely off! First of all, when a passenger asks for oxygen, we don’t automatically administer it. First we diagnose the problem. We look for specific criteria such as irrationality, level of conciousness, difficulty breathing, sympoms of diabetes, etc… Some people might be hyperventilating and it would actually make the problem worse if we put them on O2. In that case, we sometimes will put an O2 mask on them with the bottle turned off. This helps them re-inhale their CO2 and will bring their breathing back to normal. Same as breathing into a plastic bag. As for the O2 being “empty”, I can bet that the passenger with the woman saw that the plastic bag did not inflate. Well….if people would ever listen to our announcments, you would know that the plastic bag attached to the O2 mask will not inflate. We say this during the safety announcement because people think the O2 is not on if the bag doesn’t inflate. Also, if the passenger looked at the guage on the bottle and saw the needle in the red, that indicates the bottle is full, not empty. The reason for that is you don’t want the bottle to be overfilled or it could burst in the lower cabin preasure. In over 20 years of flying I have never seen an empty O2 bottle on the plane. As for the defibrilator, it will only shock a patient if the heart is in fibrilation. NOT if the heart is stopped or beating slowly. That is why they call it a “defibrilator”. The machine will sense that the heart is fibrilating (quivering) and shock it to actually stop the heart. Then the heart should start beating on it’s own. By the way, the user has absolutely NO control over weather or not the machine will advise a shock. Only the machine will decide this. I have actually used the defibrilator on a passenger and administered three shocks. American, by the way, was the first carrier to have AED’s (auto-external defibrilators) and the first to have them on their entire fleet. As to training, we have extensive mandatory training each and every year. Much of this training covers medical situations. So remember, don’t believe everything you hear from the media. Remember, this entire story was from the passenger traveling with this woman. In that situation, he might easily be hysterical and possibly in shock himself.
American Airlines continuously displays it incompetence. There is no excuse for what happened on this flight. Whether or not the woman would have died with or without the oxygen is irrelevant. The fact that she was an ill human being in need is relevant. What transpired on this flight makes me think the FA on board who denied the oxygen did not have appropriate medical and/or emergency training, not to mention where was his/her compassion? Immediate termination is in order. Also, no oxygen and a faulty defibrillator on board an aircraft at 37000 feet is scary. What if there was a terrorist attack? Did the drop down oxygen masks work or are they faulty too. Federal Investigation please. Also, was the pilot immediately notified and if he was he should have given orders to give the woman oxygen.
American Airlines leave home without them.
Because I am a frequent traveler,a through investigation is required in order to prevent this type of mishap from occuring again.
Look, there’s no excuse for any airline assistant refusing oxygen to someone who desperately needs it. And, there’s no excuse for an airline flying withour oxygen for those who may need it.
The airlines Gestapo is always right and blameless. how can a death during a flight be natural?
You know, it is just unbelievable, because something similar happened to me on an AA flight to Brazil in December. After the meal I started feeling ill, cold sweating and felt i couldn’t breathe. I stood up and walked to the backof the plane where the stewardess was sitting, having dinner. I told her I wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t breathe, and she told me I should drink some water. She didn’t even stand up to talk to me. At the time I didn’t know I had high blood pressure and diabetes ( I found it out 15 days later after seeing a doctor and having blood tests performed), but I sure knew I couldn’t breathe and I had cold sweat coming down my face.
I think the lack of interest and attention from the part of flight crew as to customers complaints is sometimes blatant at AA.