But that contradicts Chappachula’s expert source: A drunk former flight attendant! 
I stand corrected.
But here’s another question–can you practice medicine (or declare someone dead) in a state where you aren’t licensed? In mid-air, what state are you in? Suppose you got drunk from the free liquor in first class , and then decided to operate on a passenger: Which state’s board of medicine would have authority to ,say, revoke your license for malpractice?
(ooohhh…-get drunk and operate on somebody with a scalpel…—I just love to fantasize about what goes on behind that curtain in first class…)
I know where I plan to die; at the base of the Parliament Hill bell tower, having just fallen there riddled with bullets fired by 150 federal agents, wearing a pink foam cowboy hat and nothing else but smeared wth chocolate syrup, .45 pistols in both hands, all the while on a live CNN feed.
If I’m gonna go, I’m going to go out big.
That is AWESOME.
When I’ve dealt with something over Canadian airspace, it’s never been an issue. The flight attend might ask for ID, and I gather the pilot gives the doctor permission to look at the patient and access to the meagre but useful stock of on-board medicines. I reduced a dislocated shoulder using a Tylenol #2, an Ativan tablet, a shot of vodka and the aircraft crew chair with the seatbelt restraining one unlucky fellow.
Over international waters, the pilot might make the decision to stop at the closest airport to unload or assess the patient. The flight attendant contacts some on the ground medical person who runs things if no doctor is on board. When I’ve talked to the base physician, he has generally let me do my thing. On one occasion, we landed at the designated stoping point (Honolulu to break up a Toronto-Sydney flight) for an ECG, but “I” (with the base physician and the pilot) let the passenger back on the plane after seeing it looked okay. If someone was near death, I gather they’d try to stop at the nearest airport. If someone was obviously dead, I do not know.
Should have stoped while I was ahead. I rarely fly first class or drink much booze while flying (it interferes with my strategy of trying to sleep through the flight, at least for shorter trips). If I’d drank a lot, I hope I wouldn’t volunteer to help out. In Canada, helping out is covered to some degree under “Good Samaritan” laws. There might be legal problems in NOT helping out (but probably not). When I see someone in trouble, legal issues aren’t usually the first thing I think about. No one would fault you for doing the ABCs, applying oxygen, calling for help, basic things.
I knew a lady who came from Duluth. She got bit by a dog with a rabid tooth.
This stats are explicitly for people whose death was caused by a chronic illness.
This would explain why traffic accidents are not represented.
Fine, but you have to sit next to him for the rest of the flight, 'cuz frankly, it would make me uncomfortable.
Not sure if you’re joking or not, but no. “Hospital” and “hospice” are related to “hospitality” and further to “host”. All of these are derived from Latin “hostis” (which is also related to “hostile”, which may explain some of these parties I’ve been to). Other words in this family are “hotel”, “hostel”, and “guest”.
An airline stewardess told me that SOP with a death was to wrap them up and stick an oxygen mask on them - and tell people the person is feeling ill.
What to do with the body? Stick it in the overhead bin?
Hey anybody remember the movie Commando where Arnold kills the guy on the plane and makes him look like he is sleeping, and tells the stewardess not to bother him because he is “dead tired”?
This statement is rather silly. Most plane crashes result in multiple fatalities.
Nasty turbulance, huh?
Except the plane is not in flight by the time it hits the ground…!
Read some Pit threads about people trapped next to noisy, grabby, obnoxious fellow travellers and you might welcome it.
Unless the flight is long enough for him to start to smell, but to read the Pit threads, even that might not be unusual.
No, I wasn’t joking. I was thinking back to hospitals in the late medieval times which basically were just places where incurable cases were sent. That’s why I thought the word might have been related to “hospice.”
Thats freaky, paramedics here have been calling calling them dead for at least 20-25 years with base hospital contact. Even an EMT-1 was allowed to call it for obvious signs (the usual list, decay, decapitation, lividity, rigormortis, burned beyond medium well, etc)
I was gonna vote for got drunk and fell.