Tuesday, February 26, 2008

We Don’t Usually Need to Treat Diabetes With Oxygen

Last Friday, a woman died of complications from diabetes and heart disease aboard an American Airlines flight from Port Au Prince, Haiti, to JFK in New York. She began feeling ill and very thirsty immediately after eating the in-flight meal. She rapidly deteriorated to the point of needing oxygen, which one might think would have clued the flight attendants in to the fact that it was more serious than most passengers’ reactions to the cardboard airline food.

When the passenger, who was actually a nurse herself, requested oxygen from a flight attendant, she responded (in her medical opinion?!) "OK, but we usually don't need to treat diabetes with oxygen, but let me check anyway and get back to you." A spokeswoman for the union representing American's attendants on the flight also noted that "Flight attendants are trained not to automatically give oxygen to every passenger who requests it but instead use airline criteria to judge when it's needed." Airline criteria?! Meaning the same flight attendants who can't manage to bring you a second beer with dinner are the ones who are going to decide whether you get oxygen, most likely based on the same policy, i.e.: Do I really want to get her that beer, or would I rather flirt with the guy in first class? Do I really want to get him that oxygen, or would I rather finish my Sudoku puzzle?

Serious questions are now being asked about whether the flight's medical equipment was working. A pediatrician on board the plane who stepped in to assist noted that the automatic electronic defibrillator, which planes are mandated to carry, was working, but the woman's heartbeat was too weak to respond. He could not confirm or deny whether the oxygen canisters were working properly, which the woman's family denies. Interestingly, however, the oxygen on a plane is there for use in case of decompression. It can also be used for other emergencies, but presumably under the same "airline criteria" we discussed earlier.

MedAire, Inc. is a company that serves as a resource for flight attendants regarding in-flight medical events. Flight attendants with sick passengers call Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, a level-one trauma center where emergency room physicians and a service able to translate 140 languages are on call to answer questions from any of 2 million airline passengers flying at any given time. Very rarely, however, does the call result in a diversion, which is a decision made not by the doctor but by the pilot, who must consider a number of variables beyond the passenger's health, including weather conditions, remaining fuel and proximity to an airport. High Flying Bird wonders if they also consider their on-time arrival average. . . In the case of the JFK-bound flight, the pilot agreed to divert to Miami, but then continued on without stopping after the woman was pronounced dead.

High Flying Bird’s advice? Don’t fly if you’re not feeling well!

-- The Commish

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