Corpse on a plane: woman forced to sit next to corpse on flight for 10 hours

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by Ocelot
As for better compensation well of course + the airline didn't even have the decency to cover the full price of her ticket.

Well, he only died on one leg of her flight, right? It's not like he died on her round trip.

LOL well thats true

reply to post by SoymilkAlaska

i mean, the guy DIED.... he could have been sick with anything!

*Bust out laughing* - Where's she going to run an hide? She's on a bleeding plane! LOL!

And this is not the first time this has happened by any means... But yeah, a bummer for her. She should have just locked herself in the bathroom, lol.

peace

Originally posted by AdAstra
reply to post by TheTardis

 

This just shows you how other countries do things as oppose to how coddled and sheltered we are here in America.

The correct statement would be "in SOME other countries". I cannot imagine this happening or being tolerated anywhere in Europe either.
And yes, we are coddled and sheltered too.

Agreed.. But some countries, Even ones that consider themselves civilized are "too busy" or "on a schedule" or just dont place the same importance on a single human life as others.

Originally posted by Ocelot

Originally posted by Vandettas
She got $700 (Price of her ticket) in return for sitting next to a dead body. It was also reported 5 hours (not 100% sure though). Either way, its weird. Hope people know that when you die you void your bowels. Thats one smelly
flight...

She also didn't sue them. (At least not yet, but she already got the money).

edit on 26-6-2012 by Vandettas because: (no reason given)

$700 says in the article which according to the article was 1/2 the price of her ticket. The airline got off easy in my opinion I would have sued them as soon as I got off the plane.

Not that I'm saying it makes things much better, but she wasn't sitting NEXT to the man, as in they were seat by seat, the piece you have posted says he was across the aisle from her so no, she wasn't sitting next to him. Small point? Maybe, but worth noting.

Well, hopefully they at least stuck a bag over his head, getting the dead fish stare for 10 hours might spoil that in-flight meal a bit.

Also, it's going to be rough on the funeral home guys - in 10 hours he's not going to ever fit in that coffin - he'll be stuck in a seated position.

I bet you could cadge all the free drinks you wanted, though.

Originally posted by silo13
reply to post by SoymilkAlaska

 

i mean, the guy DIED.... he could have been sick with anything!

*Bust out laughing* - Where's she going to run an hide? She's on a bleeding plane! LOL!

And this is not the first time this has happened by any means... But yeah, a bummer for her. She should have just locked herself in the bathroom, lol.

peace

You gotta admit it is kind of creepy even sitting across from someone who died. Dead bodies give me the creeps, reason why I hate wakes

Was the plane so small that the body could not have been laid or placed elsewhere.

Hard to believe it had to remain in it the seat.

Originally posted by roadgravel
Was the plane so small that the body could not have been laid or placed elsewhere.

Hard to believe it had to remain in it the seat.

I don't know what size plane it was. It didn't specify in the article.

reply to post by roadgravel

I have read previous accounts of "deaths in the sky" and apparently they do leave the body in the seat ... sometimes they will even prop the body up with blankets and claim the deceased "is taking a nap".

I am wondering why they dont stow the body in a lavatory for the remainder of the flight?

reply to post by ChrisF231

Sounds like a way to deceive people to avoid legal actions from the passengers. What a company won't do for money or losing face.

reply to post by Vandettas


Hopefully, the guy did that on his own before he got on the plane. It only happens if you have something to void. If you've already gone its not going to be forced out from way up the digestive tract.

Originally posted by Bedlam
Well, hopefully they at least stuck a bag over his head, getting the dead fish stare for 10 hours might spoil that in-flight meal a bit.

Also, it's going to be rough on the funeral home guys - in 10 hours he's not going to ever fit in that coffin - he'll be stuck in a seated position.

I bet you could cadge all the free drinks you wanted, though.

You should know that rigor mortis is temporary. It lasts a few hours and then you are as plyable as you were in life so all they would have to do is lay him down.

Originally posted by ChrisF231
reply to post by roadgravel

 

I have read previous accounts of "deaths in the sky" and apparently they do leave the body in the seat ... sometimes they will even prop the body up with blankets and claim the deceased "is taking a nap".

I am wondering why they dont stow the body in a lavatory for the remainder of the flight?

The lavs are limited on a plane. Dont want valuable seats being taken up my folks who cant even flush when they're done.

People.

The bigger story here is that the man was incredibly ill before the plane took off, then died shortly after. The witnesses say the man was having SEIZURES, and the flight attendants were there to witness it. Instead of getting the man off the plane and to paramedics, they CHOSE to take off anyway.

Obviously it's not great to have to sit next to a corpse on your flight. But the *bigger* story is that he probably could have been saved...

Originally posted by ChrisF231
I am wondering why they dont stow the body in a lavatory for the remainder of the flight?

Well, that sorta *sounds* good, but in practice, it's probably worse.

For a while after he croaks, he's going to be sort of saggy loose, and then he'll stiffen up. So if you try moving the guy, you've got maybe 200 pounds of dead weight you've got to wrassle up out of a seat by yourself from a bent over, half-twisted position, which ain't easy. You can't really get two people on it - if you empty out the row behind him you can get some help from behind getting him up but it's still a chore. To do it you've had to move three to five people into the aisle (if it's a bigger plane). Once you get the guy into the aisle, you've got to drag him to the crapper - a two person job - and he's all floppy and dangly the whole way. Then when you GET to the crapper, you've got to have one person stuff him in there - again, there's no way to get two people on it. Once you get him in the crapper, he'll ooze off the seat and be a contorted heap on the floor - there's no way to hold him on there.

So all in all, it's a lot more disgusting to the average joe to try to pry this guy up, drag him down the aisle, and then try to stuff him in a crapper while he's trying to ooze back out of it. Better to leave him where he is and leave all the packing-him-around parts for when the customers are off the plane.

Not to mention, it blocks off a crapper. There's not enough of them as is.

Moving dead or unconscious people around isn't as easy as "Weekend at Bernie's".

Originally posted by karen61057
You should know that rigor mortis is temporary. It lasts a few hours and then you are as plyable as you were in life so all they would have to do is lay him down.

Well, yeah, eventually your muscle fibers deteriorate enough that you become pliable again, but by that time most people are in the ground. In this case "a few" is about 40-80 hours in cool temperatures, longer if refrigerated, shorter if you're in Panama.

It turns out Ms. Pettersson is a journalist. It also turns that "next" actually meant "across the aisle". This dead body was wrapped up in blankets, as best the flight crew could manage, and laid out, horizontally, across the three seats on one side of the aisle. His feet poked out a bit over the aisle and Ms. Pettersson was across the aisle.

www.dailymail.co.uk... feeds-newsxml

Not, I'll gladly concede, the ideal solution, but an emergency landing at an intervening airport is enormously expensive to the airline - and, flying from Kenya, a lot of the intervening airports are not exactly safe and honest.

after the SARS , bird flu and H1N1 scares here in asia in recent years someone in the condition that guy was in would have been sent to hospital and quarantined long before being allowed to board a flight ... airports here have strict procedures they follow now to prevent spread of infectious diseases ...

hmm, wonder if at all what would happen to a soul that departs midair?

float to the ground, fall maybe?

Remind me to ''Expire'' as close to the earth as possible haha not good with height!

reply to post by Bedlam


You sound experienced in this.

So how many people have you killed?