American Airlines is facing a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of a woman who died after suffering a medical emergency during a flight two years ago.
According to NBC Dallas, 25-year-old Brittany Oswell was on American Flight 102 from Honolulu to Dallas when she suffered an embolism that’s caused her to lose consciousness in the onboard lavatory.
Oswell’s husband Cory claims his wife became dizzy and disoriented before fainting three hours into the flight. Crew members found a doctor on the plane who examined Oswell and determined she suffered a panic attack.
Hours later, Oswell was discovered unconscious in the plane’s bathroom after vomiting and defecating on herself, and flight attendants called on her husband to provide assistance. The doctor onboard told crew members the flight needed to make an emergency landing to provide the woman with additional emergency attention.
The pilots on the flight called on a company physician who was not on board and made the decision to continue toward Dallas without an emergency landing. During the 90 minutes remaining in the flight, Oswell stopped breathing and the doctor onboard attempted to use a defibrillator three times, but the machine reportedly did not work.
With 45 minutes remaining in the journey, the flight crew again decided to continue the flight and CPR was administered to Oswell until the plane landed safely. Once on the ground, the aircraft was met by emergency personnel, who transferred the woman to Baylor Medical Center.
Oswell was diagnosed with anoxic brain damage and an acute embolism and was eventually taken off life support on April 18, 2016, after never regaining consciousness.
“We absolutely felt like this was not taken very seriously,” Oswell’s mother Tin Starks told ABC News. “She’s no longer here to do anything with us and it’s all because someone made a business decision to keep flying a plane when she needed emergency medical help that they could not provide because of inadequacies on board the flight.”
American told ABC News it is “looking into the details of the complaint.”
