A Swedish woman has received compensation from Kenya Airways after sitting next to a man who had died shortly after take-off. The story was reported in the Swedish tabloid Expressen.se. Cabin crew teams are trained to deal with medical emergencies, and will appreciate the difficulties faced when a fatality becomes unavoidable during a flight.
The passenger was forced to sit next to the dead body of a man who passed away mid-flight on a Kenya Airways service from Amsterdam to Tanzania, said
Expressen's report.
Lena Pettersson, a reporter for Sveriges Radio (SR), noticed the man sitting in the aisle directly opposite her was feeling unwell not long after she boarded the flight at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport.
He was seen to be “sweating and was having convulsions", and while the plane was airborne, cabin crew put out a call for medical assistance. The man, thought to have been in his 30s, was given cardiac massage.
However, he died a few hours later, leaving Lena to sit next to his corpse for around four hours.
Ms Pettersson explained that staff seemed baffled by what to do, so they wrapped him in blankets and laid him out on the row over three seats.
She later told Expressen.se: "Of course it was unpleasant, but I am not a person who makes a fuss."
However when she returned home after her holiday, she decided to seek compensation from the airline and was refunded 5000 kronor (about £450), which amounted to half the cost of her ticket.
Cabin crew acted in accordance to advice on dealing with illness mid-flight, but clearly on this occasion the man's medical condition meant he could not be saved.
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