Brittany Oswell and her husband, Cory Oswell
Dallas, TX — The husband and family of an African American woman who died after suffering from an embolism in the middle of an American Airlines flight in 2016 have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the airline claiming the pilot refused to land.
According to the family’s complaint, she fainted on the plane and “vomited and defecated all over herself and the lavatory.” A doctor, also a passenger, advised that an emergency landing is needed so she could receive proper medical attention.
However, even after the doctor directly told the pilot about it, he refused to land saying he already spoke to another doctor on the ground.
Oswell, later on, stopped breathing while still on the plane making the doctor and the flight attendants try to use a defibrillator. She did not regain consciousness even until she was brought to Baylor Medical Center after landing where she died after three days on life support.
Oswell’s mother, Tina Starks, blames American Airlines for her daughter’s death. She told ABC News, “We absolutely felt like this was not taken very seriously. She’s no longer here to do anything with us and it’s all because someone made a business decision to keep flying a plane when she needed emergency medical help that they could not provide because of inadequacies on board the flight.”
According to the family’s lawyers, Oswell’s cause of death was an embolism and cardiac arrest during the flight. Her husband and family are now suing American Airlines for their negligence to do an emergency landing which resulted in a passenger’s death.
Meanwhile, the airline said in a statement, “We were deeply saddened by this event and our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to Mrs. Oswell’s loved ones. We take the safety of our passengers very seriously and we are looking into the details of the complaint.”