A man died on a flight that landed at a Utah airport on Sunday. Passengers on the United Airlines plane performed CPR for about 30 minutes to try to revive him.
Jared Noall, a passenger on Flight 5596 happened to be a combat medic with the Army Reserve. He was one of the passengers who tried to perform CPR on the man who died.
According to KSL, Noall noticed the man snoring loudly about 20 minutes before the plane landed at Salt Lake City International Airport. The man shifted a bit but he eventually stopped snoring.
"We just thought he had found the sweet spot where he was comfortable and could sleep," Noall said.
When the plane landed, the passengers realized that the man wasn't just sleeping. Whne Noall looked at him again, he knew right away that he was dead.
"You could tell something was wrong. I asked, 'Hey, sir, are you awake?' " Noall said. "I shook him a bit, trying to see if I could get a response out of him. We checked his throat for a pulse, and it wasn't there, so we laid him down in the aisle and start CPR."
Noall and another man and a woman used a defribillator and performed CPR on the man until paramedics arrived. The man was moved off the plane and pronounced dead half an hour later.
"It sort of sucks because you always want to save people's lives, but what can you do?" Noall said. "Everyone came together to try to help, though. We did what we could."
Another passenger, Kevin MacIsaac also acknowledged the efforts of the passengers who tried to help.
"They tried their very best; the family of the deceased man would be glad to know he did everything possible to revive him." he said. "It was sad to see the flight attendant remove his bag from the overhead rack - what shocking news for his family."
Noall said that a woman who was sitting near the man was distraught over the incident.
"I sat down and let her know it's OK, it's part of life and there's really nothing she could have done," he said.
The name of the man has not been released. Noall said he was likely in his thirties. United Airlines confirmed the death but would not release further details.
This wasn't the first time someone died on a plane.
In January a 25-year-old woman died on an American Airlines flight. In November, a Emirates Airline flight from Dubai to England made an emergency landing in Poland when another woman died on a flight. In September, a 64-year-old woman died on a Korean Air flight. In June, a man died on a flight from Amsterdam to Tazmania. His body was covered and laid across three seats, but passengers still had to sit near the body for the duration of the flight.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
