According to a new lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother, a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest on an American Airlines flight but could not be revived when a doctor tried to use a defibrillator on board.
According to the lawsuit, the defibrillator was defective, and American Airlines is to blame.
According to the suit filed this month in federal court in New York by Kevin Greenidge’s mother, Melissa Arzu, Kevin Greenidge was flying from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to Miami last June when he experienced the cardiac issue.
According to the lawsuit, American Airlines failed to “ensure that the automatic external defibrillator and its mobile battery pack were fully and properly charged,” and that the airline’s alleged negligence “caused, permitted, and/or hastened Greenidge’s untimely death.”
Kevin was traveling with his uncle to New York when he became ill, according to Thomas Giuffra, a partner at the law firm Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo & Plotkin, who represents Arzu. He was on his way back from a family vacation.
An American Airlines spokesperson told Insider that the carrier was reviewing the lawsuit’s details. “Our hearts go out to Mr. Greenidge and his family,” the airline said.
Defibrillators have been required on all passenger aircraft since 2004, and American Airlines was the first US commercial airline to install defibrillators and train flight attendants to use them in 1997. They are classified as “no-go” items, which means that if they are missing or “inoperative,” the plane should not be dispatched.
“Individual airlines should develop a protocol for automatic external defibrillator use,” according to the FAA. The minimum requirement is that the defibrillator is “operative” before a flight takes off and airlines should inspect the AEDs according to their manufacturer’s recommendations.
The number of times defibrillators have been used on American Airlines flights was not disclosed to Insider. In a 2007 press release, the airline noted ten years of having defibrillators on planes, citing 76 lives saved by the devices.
According to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, there are approximately 350 “air-travel associated” cardiac arrests in the United States each year, with one-quarter of those occurring on a plane.
According to the study, 15% of those who suffered a cardiac arrest on a plane survived long enough to be discharged. The national average for survival after a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital is less than 11%, and the study directly links the higher rate on planes to the presence of a defibrillator.
