Hypoxia Paradox
The recent incident, apparently, involving hypoxia has raised a point about the ATC involvement. As both a former pilot and controller I am trying to look at this from both sides. Prior to being rendered unresponsive, the pilot requested descent from FL280 to FL180. He accepted an interim descent to FL250 but reiterated he needed lower. The controller responded "I'm working on that'; meaning (I assume) he had conflicting traffic. The pilot stated he had some sort of indication in the cockpit but never said it was related to pressurization, and never declared an emergency.
What I am wondering about is in a situation where a controller is informed that pressurization is potentially compromised, should the controller not 'force' the aircraft down, because the pilots judgement is now called into question?
We as controllers certainly do not want to be in the business of flying the aircraft on your behalf, but since hypoxia is often insidious, at what point do we save you from yourself? Is this an additional layer of safety that the pilot community would want to be added?
Obviously this is a very sensitive issue, but i would love to generate some constructive discussion.