A passenger died on a flight from Orlando to Los Angeles from COVID-19 a coroner confirmed. The man was seen by other passengers on the plane shaking and sweating and having a hard time breathing even before the flight took off. United Flight 591 diverted to New Orleans when the passenger died. Because medical professionals initially ruled the emergency as cardiac arrest, the flight continued on to Los Angeles on the same plane.
Contact tracers are trying to warn all the passengers from that flight. The story first came to light when the passenger @jobreaux seated in front of the man Tweeted: “The man behind me on this flight. DIED. OF COVID. MIDFLIGHT.” the passenger continued, “& we finna continue this flight. On the SAME CONTAMINATED ASS plane. Wet wipes *better* save the day this time. Bc I’m shook.” When someone asked her how she knew she knew the man had tested positive for COVID-19, she said the man’s wife had confirmed the fact while talking to the EMTs.
A passenger, Tony Aldapa who tried to help the man is now reporting COVID symptoms. He along with a nurse performed CPR on the passenger to try and keep him alive as the flight was diverted to New Orleans to get the man help. “There were three of us that were essentially tag-teaming doing chest compressions, probably about 45 minutes,” During CPR, the bones of the deceased could be heard to crack as chest compressions were carried out before he started turning blue. Aldapa told CBS LA.
Aldapa said, ‘There was no mouth-to-mouth at all. We were doing chest compressions and they had him on the oxygen mask from the plane, then once we had a medical bag that is kept on board we used an ambu-bag which is a bag that you squeeze to give breaths, that’s what we used for breathing”. Aldapa is waiting for the results of a second COVID-19 test.
United Airlines claims the deceased passenger lied when he filled out a form before the flight saying he had no COVID-19 symptoms. The final weekend before Christmas saw more than 3 million travelers, according to TSA, which eclipsed any three-day total associated with Thanksgiving travel in 2020. The surge in new cases and deaths from all that travel will begin to be seen the first week of the new year.