Brittany Oswell was flying an American Airlines flight from Hawaii to Dallas-Fort Worth on April 16th when she collapsed. She subsequently regained consciousness and then collapsed again. Another passenger, who was a medical doctor, determined she should have advanced medical care immediately and asked the pilot to divert to the nearest airport. The pilot, on conversing with another doctor of the ground, decided to continue the flight to DFW.
During the in-flight emergency, the doctor attempted to use on-board medical equipment, two blood pressure machines and a defibrillator, all of which malfunctioned. Oswell was declared brain-dead three days after the landed at DFW.
What this tells me is that, should you have a medical emergency while in flight on an American Airlines plane, medical equipment on board may be totally useless. Further, if there is a medical doctor on board who can and will assist, his/her immediate diagnosis may be overruled by another doctor on the ground who has no medical readings upon which to base a decision.
A spokesperson for American Airlines released the following statement: “We take the safety of our passengers very seriously and we
are looking into the details of the complaint.”
Given the information as it is presented here, you must presume that American does not routinely check to make certain such equipment is operative and you should not get on an American Airlines flight unless you have your own medical doctor with his own equipment on board with him.
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