Passenger Family Sues American Airlines After In-flight Death

[wiggy]

Well said PM.

Sometimes the moving map has a lot to answer for - the obvious nearest airport on the map might be closed ( I’ve had that one...closed due snow) or it might not offer suitable facilities for the casualty and a better option might be overflight to a more distant airport (Gander vs. St Johns is a classic case ) and that is something the medics on the ground are far better equipped to assess than anybody on the aircraft.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Piltdown Man

A rough look at the facts suggests if they took a direct route, the aircraft was in the vicinity of Abilene, some 300 miles from Dallas, possibly 20 minutes closer to the destination when the decision to continue was made.

What is your source ?

You may be right, but the lawsuit appear to be based on the doctor's first request for a diversion being about two hours before landing at DFW.

[herman the crab]

Originally Posted by MarcK

And here I was, thinking you are a real paramedic. You don't shock if there is no heart activity at all (flatline). Just VFib and VTach.

i am a real paramedic and you may check the HPC register if you are polite enough to PM for my details. I would suggest you erred what I wrote too.

I am aware that you do not shock asystole (rarely flat-line in the true sense of the words - but you know that of course?), but given the poster's gross misunderstanding already I didn't think going into specific cardiac rhythms was appropriate.

HTC.

[GrahamO]

Originally Posted by herman the crab

I am aware that you do not shock asystole (rarely flat-line in the true sense of the words - but you know that of course?), but given the poster's gross misunderstanding already I didn't think going into specific cardiac rhythms was appropriate.

So when you shouted NO, to my post, you in fact mean YES !

A defib will not shock a non-moving heart back into life.

Given the report said that the uninformed passenger said the the defib 'did not work' can you not understand that it is more likely the defib was working but had made the informed choice to not shock what was already not working ? Its entirely appropriate to go into specific cardiac rhythms as its entirely appropriate - by reading your post you come across as if stating that a defib will always fire - it will not. I know you know the right answer but your reponse was factually incorrect.

I asked a local A&E Nurse who was in the office for doing training for our aircraft maintenance guys and they confirmed exactly what I posted - a defib unit will choose not to fire unless there is something there to correct. You as a professional will have access and are trusted with the full version of the units but us mere untrained mortals will be relying on commercial units which again, will diagnose and if not finding electrical activity will not fire.

[PAXboy]

The Automated External Defibrillator (AED) has indicator LEDs to give status. So that, it will report if it does not need to fire as there is no shockable rythem. In the heat of things, the untrained may not have read the indicators correctly and so thought it was not working. Again, I suggest, TV medical dramas have something to answer for.

[PAXboy]

I plead this as related thread drift.

Today I was sent an article link by my sister in law, who is a professional swimming coach and runs a swimming school. The title is: Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning. It carries the specific criticism:

Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life.

I commend the article to you for safety in the sea/water. It is short and to the point about how people, mostly, drown silently - but television and films have told us the polar opposite. Soundings On Line

[Piltdown Man]

DR - Fair comment. I was working with the quote from the ABC article where it said "The flight crew, after again consulting the on-call physician not on board, decided to continue to Dallas with about 45 minutes left until arrival..." and an assumption of a groundspeed close to 500 kts. But on second thoughts this would place them (assuming a route inside US airspace) in the area of the Texas/New Mexico boarder. Again, using this article, this unpleasant episode started over Arizona in the region of Phoenix. But if the flight went through Mexican airspace, their options were even fewer. What I had not realised is the how little there is in this part of the world. There's a lot of and not much else.

PM