Legitimate question - what happens when someone overdoses on the plane?
This happened to us several years ago. Not sure why I have been thinking about it today -
Several years ago my wife and I were flying from CLT to LHR and onward to another city. We were waiting in line to board our CLT - LHR flight. As they were boarding folks in wheelchairs, I noticed this guy being wheeled onboard and noted "Wow - that guy does not look good". I even made a comment about it to my wife. Basically, his eyes were glazed and he had trouble sitting upright in the wheelchair. He was almost falling out of the wheelchair as they were getting him on the plane. I thought "Oh well". We boarded and took our seats in Premium Economy. I noticed that the guy was sitting in Business. Anyways, about 1.5 hours into the flight, we hear a loud thump and they make an announcement that they need medical help ASAP. This was all happening in the galley between Business and Premium Economy and my wife had a direct view of everything. She said that the guy looked like he was having a seizure on the floor. The medical help on board was able to stabilize and my wife overheard one of the medical professionals tell the FA that he had overdosed on XX (I forgot what, but it was an opioid). The plane then had to make an emergency landing in JFK but it took over an hour to get him off the plane because he was large and they needed to bring in a special stretcher and extra medical support to get him on the stretcher. It took us another 1.5 hours to leave JFK because they needed to replace all the medical supplies. Long story short - most of us missed our connecting planes.
I am not "mad" at the guy (there are many non-nefarious reasons why he was taking opioids), but legitimately curious - what happens when someone ODs on a plane? Does AA go after him for financial compensation? AA had to reschedule most people on the plane which costs $$$. On the other hand, I feel like he was not obviously not fit to fly (glazed eyes and could hardly sit straight) and the gate agents and FAs should have caught that before he boarded.