A mother from New York is suing American Airlines after her son when into cardiac arrest on a flight to Florida and died because the plane’s automatic external defibrillator (AED) was not charged.
100 Percent Fed Up reports – Kevin Greenridge, a teenager from New York, was flying to Miami from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on June 4, 2022, when he suddenly went into cardiac arrest. According to the lawsuit, the crew onboard the flight tried to resuscitate Greenridge, but the onboard AED was not charged.
Despite an emergency landing in Cancun, Mexico, Greenridge did not survive the heart attack.
After suffering the tragic loss of her son, Melissa Arzu filed a lawsuit against American Airlines in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is seeking damages and payment of attorney fees.
The lawsuit states that the teen’s death was “caused wholly and solely by reason of the carelessness, recklessness, and negligence of the defendant AMERICAN, its respective agents, servants and/or employees in failing to maintain an automatic external defibrillator on board the subject flight.”
It also states that American Airlines inadequately trained its employees to deal with basic resuscitation techniques, thus “causing, permitting, and allowing the mobile battery pack to drain down to no power, thereby causing AED to stop working.”
“That as a consequence of the defendant’s negligence in failing to maintain a working defibrillator upon their flight caused, permitted, and/or hastened the untimely death of… Kevin Greenridge,” the suit added.
The lawsuit cites the Aviation Medical Assistance Act of 1998, which states that the law “requires airlines to carry defibrillators aboard each aircraft with flight attendants” and that the emergency devices “must be inspected regularly in accordance with inspection periods established in the operations specifications to ensure its condition for continued serviceability and immediate readiness to perform its intended emergency purposes.”
