BBC journalist Max Pearson, experienced a personal tsunami of sorts when he suffered a heart attack on board a Singapore Airlines flight bound for London.
Singapore Airlines Flight Indifferent to Plea for Landing from Heart Attack Victim
Just few moments after the plane took off from Singapore, Pearson, 51, suffered a heart attack. A plea for emergency landing to avail immediate medical assistance was turned down by the cabin crew.
Pearson, who had flown in from Tokyo to Singapore after reporting the Japanese Tsunami was taking a connecting flight bound for London.
Left with no choice but to endure the 14 hour flight, with his life literally hanging in the air, Pearson was rushed to a hospital after the plane landed at Heathrow where he underwent emergency surgery.
Pearson survived the attack, but the lack of immediate medical attention which is crucial after a heart attack, undoubtedly caused irreparable damage to his heart. He is now considering taking legal action against Singapore Airlines.
Source: Medindia
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What the crew of Singapore Airlines did, warrants a legal action taken against them to make sure that they will not do it again. When a person is having a heart attack, time is of the essence. Singapore Airlines should have taken immediate response when one of their passengers suffered a heart attack. They should have had an emergency landing since it was only moments before they the plane took off.
Wowww, when I heard about this news I was shocked. I had to attend to a passenger as well on board 2 weeks ago with Etihad airways. Luckily it's not a heart attack but I was frustrated that it was so slow for them to respond that it got to a point that the passenger felt he was dying from severe abdominal pain. Even got to a point if I think that we need to divert the flight luckily I managed to stabilise the passenger after 7 hours and completed our 13 1/2 hour flight from Melbourne to Abu dhabi. The sad part is not a little thank you I've heard from the airline even to the cabin manager that I was dealing with on board to look after their passenger. No wonder medical staff are reluctant to attend to such calls because of the responsibility when they are not even given a little thank you. I'm glad I work in the hospital not on board.