Dead on Arrival IAH

[Lonewolf_50]

Dead on Arrival (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/flight-brazil-diverted-female-passenger-dies-article-1.1232084)

I suppose this isn't the first time this has ever happened. Diverting to Houston not that short of destination, in an effort to get her medical aid sooner rather than later looks like one of those Captain's calls you make and people leave you alone about it.

Too bad it wasn't soon enough.

The crew are probably very disappointed they couldn't do more to help her. :(

[PAXboy]

If the event that causes death is strong enough - then nothing can save the person - unless they are already in hospital and the medics are standing waiting for it to happen.

For the greatest majority of folks who die suddenly - it is too late. The causes vary but they usually fall into 'heart' and 'brain'. Without boring you with the many ways in which people can die, one of the 'heart' category is called Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS). This has no warning sign and can take a life in seconds. (I know of healthy people who have simply died on the spot.) By the time people realise what is wrong - make the tests and take action, the person is gone. If a pax is, say, snoozing in their seat and has a cardiac arrest, or brain haemorrhage, then they can simply die without a sound and no one knows for a while.

The movies and TV like to do the whole kerfuffle ending with "We got him/her back" but that is the minority of cases. Not to say that you must not make the effort! The post mortem will reveal what it was and how quickly it overtook her, but we wil not know. All credit to the crew and the carrier for spending the money to divert.

[DaveReidUK]

I suppose this isn't the first time this has ever happened

Numbers are hard to come by, but a ballpark figure would be one death for every 3 million or so passengers.

Cathay, for example, had 9 in-flight deaths in 2005.

[Solar]

I have just been on a Transaero flight from Moscow to Yuzhno Sakhalinsk which was delayed for two hours prior to take off due to a passenger having died just after push back.
At first I assumed that the passenger had been taken ill as all the PA information was in Russian but I was advised later by one of the Russian passengers that the person had died.
Not a pleasant experience and puts your own inconvience at being delayed into perspective.