Dying woman dragged half-naked from American Airline flight, witness says

MINNEAPOLIS — A woman who died following an in-flight medical emergency Monday was dragged, half-naked and unresponsive, from an American Airlines flight that landed in Minnesota, a witness said.

Passenger Art Endress told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that flight attendants found the woman, who has not yet been identified, unresponsive in the restroom of the Boeing 737 as the crew prepared to land at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The flight was inbound from Dallas.

The woman, who Endress said appeared to be traveling alone, did not respond to resuscitation efforts by a doctor and nurse on board, so emergency medical technicians boarded the flight once it was on the ground.

One of the EMTs dragged the woman, who was naked from the waist down, by her arms past fellow passengers and onto the jet bridge.

"The EMT was out of line on that one," Endress told the Star-Tribune. "Also, the flight attendants could have thrown a blanket on her."

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Airport spokesman Paul Hogan told the newspaper that the first responders were "focused on trying to save her life and get her in the jet bridge, where they could continue to try to resuscitate her."

Other passengers were kept on the plane for about an hour as efforts to revive the woman continued on the jet bridge, to no avail. Airport workers used a tarp to shield the woman from view as passengers deplaned.

Endress told the Star-Tribune that another passenger who was seated near the woman who died told him the woman went to the restroom about halfway into the nearly three-hour flight and never returned to her seat.

American Airlines did not respond to questions from the newspaper on the incident.

Cox Media Group