I suspect the person would have been likely to have slept through the journey
An assumption that many flight and cabin crew have made in the past, to their later regret, unfortunately.
As others have said, sounds like the ground staff (if they were aware) wanted to pass the problem onto someone else. This happens regularly enough, and the cabin crew have to make their own assessment and inform the captain.
It is a brave (or foolish) captain who would go against the advice of the cabin crew. It happened to me back when I was an FO and we all regretted the decision made by a captain who just wanted to finish his shift.