And to be fair, lots of things aren’t done because X is afraid of a high chance of loosing an eleventy-billion dollar suit. They are worried about the slim chance of it. And even if they know they wouldn’t end up paying eleventy billion, they do know they could spend a bunch of money to lawyers making sure they win.
Easiest and safest thing to do? Don’t take the chance in the first place.
Or, you know, she could have gotten in a car or on a train and gone to Austria, where presumably the medical care would be up to her standards. She could probably have even found an English-speaking doctor. And if she’s that afraid of medical care anywhere but in the U.S., then she shouldn’t have left the U.S. in the first place knowing she had potentially serious medical conditions.
Better question is whether her obesity was from being diabetic or she made herself fat and diabetic.
Note to airlines, go back to the 70s seats please which were huge, could fit two people and had their own ashtrays!
No sympathy. The airlines did their best and that’s all they could do. She brought it on herself and has no-one else to blame. I hope the suit gets tossed promptly.
Gaaaaah! No! No more smoking on planes, PLEASE!
The story gets worse. Not only did she weigh 407 lbs, she only had one leg. They used an airlift to get her on the first plane on KLM and one was not available to get her on the second Delta plane after she had been put off the KLM return flight because of a seat back issue. Then she was unable to fit on the Lufthansa flight, which is believable when you see her photo. Even the fire brigade and technical experts couldn’t get her in.
http://gma.yahoo.com/obese-woman-denied-flights-home-dies-abroad-191137549--abc-news-topstories.html
Sorry, but when you are that big, airline travel is not a sure thing.
I wonder what the issue was with the seat back. Did every seat have the same issue?
It was no longer in its full-upright position?
I chuckled, but then thought (especially after looking at her picture) that’s probably exactly right. There’s no way she could fit in there without reclining the seat.
And sometimes that “eleventy-billion dollars” isn’t as huge as it seems at first blush. Whatever absurd amount of money that McDonalds’ was penalized for that old lady who scalded her crotch with their hot coffee was:
Only one single day’s worth of coffee sales for the company. That’s it. Hardly a massive crippling blow to McDonald’s at all. Effectively a slap on the wrist in the grand scheme of things; it’s just that a slap on the wrist to a company McDonald’s size seems like a mind-bogglingly huge amount of money to the rest of us.
Several problems here for her and her husband the largest is:
It does not appear to have been a medical emergency that required transport, nor is there anything stating that they declared their trip as such. To me this is where they lose. The simply can’t expect emergency accommodations without stating that they have a medical emergency.
then we get into issues that they failed to follow things that could have saved her, local doctors, drive to another city, etc.
Fault solely on the couple.
IMHO
Could she have been put on board a military transport, or FedEx plane?
Seriously, if you have bad medical problems, you have no business going overseas, unless its for treatment.
Precisely. It’s just hard to get some people to accept this as a fact of our existence.
So if I get a mind-boggling huge amount of money from a company that I don’t deserve from a company that isn’t at fault for a problem that money can’t fix its okay if the company won’t miss that money?
IMO that is still just theft, its just stealing a tiny amount from a bunch of people from people that didnt do anything wrong.
I don’t want a penny of my airfair money going to the dumb widower and his grubby lawyer.
I think the Airline and the insurance company are gonna have to fight this one. I cannot see them losing, but it will cost.
The airline did everything it could…above and beyond, IMO, but if she she cannot be secured in the seat then she cannot fly. Period. That would have put her AND other passengers in danger.
[Marlin Perkins] Having successfully mated, and with the death of his mate, the feeder now enters a new phase, that of blood-sucker [/Marlin Perkins]
As many here have said. When you have two choices, die or the accept available medical help, the obvious answer is the latter option. It’s too bad she didn’t see it that way.
Also, even if she had valid reasons not to trust Hungarian doctors, she was probably a 2 or 3 hour drive from Austria, or keep going to Switzerland and Germany in another 5 hours or so.
She had plenty of medical options with world class hospitals within a 10 hour drive.
Instead of driving to Prague, it would have been closer to drive to Vienna and go to a hospital there.
Sounds to me like Delta did everything they could. She should have accepted whatever medical care was available to her, or stayed at home if she was too sick to travel.
She was FROM Hungary so I’m wondering what her beef was with Hungarian doctors. I’m sure they’ve heard of diabeetus and kidney disease.
We’re not talking about Soviet-era medicine or a third-world country or something; Prague certainly is a very modern city. I can understand just wanting to get home when you’re sick, but my god, the first or second time an airline turns you away, get yourself to the nearest doctor!