In the air, health emergencies rise quietly
By Robert Davis and Anthony DeBarros, USA TODAY
The death of an American Airlines passenger during a flight from Haiti to New York last month has cast a spotlight on the growing number of medical emergencies on commercial jets, a trend that largely has escaped public notice because airlines aren’t required to report such incidents.
The clearest picture of the problem comes from MedAire, an Arizona-based company that provides emergency medical advice to airlines that carry nearly half of the 768 million passengers on U.S. flights each year. A MedAire analysis, done at USA TODAY’s request, indicates the rate of medical emergencies aboard commercial flights nearly doubled from 2000 to 2006, from 19 to 35 per 1 million passengers.
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The increasing rate […]