American Air Refuses Oxygen to Dying Woman, Then 3 Equipment Failures

[mempilot]

People should be ashamed of themselves for posts in this thread! There is so much misinformation and complete speculation posted here that it is malicious and slander. It seems there is a certain group of divers that dwell on the misfortune of others. You see it all the time on this board. If it involves the death of a diver, the MODS are quick to shut down the post when people start arguing over the actions of a dive company, but in this case, where the operator is an airline, they continue to let the BS rain.

Most of you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to airline operations. Your feelings and opinions are based on the delays or crappy customer service you've experienced. Carrying those feelings through to safety and procedures is BS. Many of you have absolutely no business posting things about airline safety and procedures, because in the majority of cases, you are absolutely wrong.

Grow the f up and realize that the airlines move millions of passengers daily. You'd be surprised at how many people die on commercial flights every day across the world. Yes, that is daily. It's only when our wonderful media rushes a story to print before collecting all the facts that you people have the chance to spread BS.

Many of you should be retracting your earlier comments, and to the MODS, this thread should have been shut down long ago, lest some airline decide to sue you for allowing malicious slander on your board.

 

[DandyDon]

I could ask it be closed and/or the original post changed, but I am not. Going to leave it for a learning experience...

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Excuse me if I missed the point of this whole thread, or missed some posts (I tried to read them all), but, from what I have heard:

1) the doctors who attended her on the flight said the AED didn't trigger because she was in electromechanical dissociation, sinus rhythm with no pulse and then flatlined and died. Defibrillators, working or not, will not fire in this setting. Of course, why listen to the doctors when we can hear from the cousins and their lawyers?

2) a person with diabetes and CAD who goes into EMD in a setting like this, due to myocardial infarction is dead, period. The flight attendants could have had the Saturn V booster's supply of LOX in the overhead compartment and it wouldn't mean anything. Mask oxygen from bottles will barely scratch her oxygenation in this setting, so who cares if there was oxygen on board. She was short of breath because her left ventricle quit working, not because she didn't have supplemental oxygen.

3) a person with diabetes, CAD and MI who goes into EMD outside of Mass General Hospital with a cardiac surgeon waiting and a crash cart and EMT's on the curb in three minutes is...still dead. Not always, just 95% of the time. No matter what propaganda EFR programs put out, having an AED and CPR and oxygen and whatever for a person who goes down from an MI and loses their pressure will almost never save them. V fib in a healthy heart felled by a sudden electrical event is one thing, but that really isn't the norm. Of course, CPR training and AEDs, etc are a wonderful thing, but somehow the public has been duped into thinking that everyone who goes down with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest can be saved, when, in fact, very few are. Thus, if you arrest and die on the street, someone messed up. In reality, it's called natural death.

4) Say the oxygen was perfect, the AED shocked her back into rhythm...now what??? Hours away from a hospital, no iv rhythm stabilizers or vasopressors, no airway control, lying in the aisle...yeah, that will work.

The take home message: people with severe medical problems should think twice about taking transoceanic flights and be willing to pay the consequences. I'm sorry, but not every opportunity is open to everyone at all times. People are forbidden from driving, etc because of health reasons. Every time I fly I see some thousand year old person, barely alive, being wheeled onto the plane and stuffed into a seat by five people like El Cid nailed on his horse. If they are going to see their grandkids, have the kids come to them. If people insist on flying while on death's door, and have a massive coronary in route, then they and their counsels can't expect that a three hundred dollar coach fare buys you a ticket on a flying hospital ship.

 

[jbd]

I could ask it be closed and/or the original post changed, but I am not. Going to leave it for a learning experience...

Who is this learning experience targeted towards???? And just what are they supposed to learn????

Although I gotta admit lots of lay folks could learn something from the above post by
shakeybrainsurgeon.

 

[Drew Sailbum]

If diverting the plane, the best option is to look for the closest location that could provide appropriately advanced care for the patient. This was a flight from Haiti to NYC - a route which is almost entirely over water.

It looks like The Bahamas or Turks and Caicos might have been closer, but I doubt they could provide better care than Miami. Returning to Haiti may not have been much better for the patient. There is a steady trade in medical evacuation flights from the Caribbean. If they landed in Nassau or returned to Haiti then likely a medical evacuation flight would have been needed to reach advanced care.

And as others have noted, just looking at a oxygen bottle or AED is no way to determine if it is "working." From a layman's point of view, anything that does not save his loved one must be broken. So, what would I believe? Two oxygen bottles and an AED were all malfunctioning, or one layman with a vested interest in the matter didn't know what he was talking about?

 

[D_B]

Slander? for commenting on what was printed in an public published article?

Thanks shakybrainsurgeon for the info .. makes sense and something for the infirm to think of before going on a long trip

 

[mempilot]

Slander? for commenting on what was printed in an public published article?

You are right. Not slander. Libel. SB is broadcast media.
"Slander is an untruthful oral (spoken) statement about a person that harms the person's reputation or standing in the community. Because slander is a tort (a civil wrong), the injured person can bring a lawsuit against the person who made the false statement. If the statement is made via broadcast media -- for example, over the radio or on TV -- it is considered libel, rather than slander, because the statement has the potential to reach a very wide audience." ~ NOLO.COM

Go back and read the thread. There are a lot of wildly inaccurate statements made about American Airlines and airlines in general due to this thread. Those statements are made with no knowledge of what they are talking about, but with malice that damages reputation.

MODS - Why is this thread still open?

 

[DandyDon]

Yeah, I did finally send a request to a Mod to close it and post this at the top of post #1...

"It seems that the news story I quoted here was apparently mostly based on uneducated statements from family members and may not have been at all accurate. American did publish their version of the story later, and I am inclined to believe their explanations.

I am not asking that the thread be pulled, however - as the discussion is interesting, and it also serves as a learning experience about believing anything we see in the news - much less me posting it." :silly:

Well, I had a typo in the request, but oh welll...

 

[Ann Marie]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

The original poster has asked that this thread be closed along with the posting of the following information:

"It seems that the news story I quoted here was apparently mostly based on uneducated statements from family members and may not have been at all accurate. American did publish their version of the story later, and I am inclined to believe their explanations.

I am not asking that the thread be pulled, however - as the discussion is interesting, and it also serves as a learning experience about believing anything we see in the news - much sill me posting it." - DandyDon

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