Mandy Smith, who worked as a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic, told LADbible about an experience her colleague had with the death of a passenger on a plane mid-flight.
“That’s never happened to me, thankfully,” Smith said during an episode of Honesty Box. “It happened to a friend of mine, when a passenger died during the flight,” she explained.
The flight attendant said they used to place passengers’ bodies inside the lavatory. However, this protocol can result in a problem when it’s time for the burial.
“Since they were left sitting on the toilet, while they were in there, if rigor mortis set in, then they would get stuck in that position and wouldn’t fit inside the coffin,” she said.
Rigor mortis is characterized by the stiffening of the joints and muscles moments after death. Funeral professionals would have to massage the deceased so the body could fit into the coffin.
“Unfortunately, now we need to lay them down across the front seats and try to comfort their loved ones,” the flight attendant reported.
+Check out Mandy Smith’s full testimony
“Treat them with respect, cover them with blankets and maybe just isolate the area with blankets clipped to the overhead bins, which is what I would probably do,” Smith explained.
The flight attendant also says the crew is legally required to continue resuscitation techniques until it is determined that the person is truly dead.
“But if it were someone who died of natural causes or another type of illness, then obviously we wouldn’t need to do anything in that case,” she said.
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