A 63-year-old man died after coughing up “litres of blood” on a Lufthansa flight from Bangkok to Munich, it was reported. After the flight departed Bangkok, the plane was turned around 90 minutes later as the German national was pronounced dead.
Karin Missfelder, a fellow passenger said that the man lost litres of blood through his mouth and nose and “it was absolute horror, everyone was screaming.” Talking to Swiss news outlet Blick, Karin Missfelder said, “He had cold sweats, was breathing much too quickly, and was already apathetic.”
But his wife said that they had run to the plane in haste because of which the man was not feeling well, the passenger shared. After this, a nurse looked after the man and concluded that he needed urgent medical attention.
“A young, around 30-year-old man from Poland with poor English looked at the German,” Karin Missfelder said, adding, “They then gave him a little chamomile tea, but he [had] already spit blood into the bag that his wife held out to him.”
Despite this, flight officials decided to depart owing to which the man’s condition worsened and blood began gushing out of his mouth and nose, the passenger said.
When the man lost a lot of blood, he could not be resuscitated. The flight captain then announced over the loudspeaker that the passenger had died.
Karin Missfelder’s husband, Martin described the situation as chaotic. He said, “Nobody looked after us, we waited two hours. There was no care team there, nobody.”
My wife “stood there all alone and apathetic and had to endure all the formalities”, he said, explaining, “The fact that Lufthansa has no measures in his case, that no one cares about around 30 traumatised passengers around, is unacceptable.”
As per The Independent, a Lufthansa representative confirmed that “a medical emergency” had occurred on the flight and “although immediate and comprehensive first aid measures were taken by the crew and a doctor on board, the passenger died during the flight. After 1.5 hours of flight time, the crew decided to turn back to Bangkok, where the aircraft landed normally and safely.”