'nothing on the plane works,' relative says after woman dies on american flight

An American Airlines rider died after a flight attendant told her he couldn't give her any O and then tried to help her with faulty equipment, including an empty O tank, a relation said.

The air hose confirmed the flight death and said checkup professionals had tried to save the rider, Carine Desir, who was returning home to New York from Haiti.

Desir, who had heart disease, died of natural causes, checkup examiner's business office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said Lord's Day.

Desir had complained of not feeling well and being very thirsty on the Fri flight from Haitian capital after she ate a meal, according to Antonio Oliver, a first cousin who was travel with her and her blood brother Joel Desir. A flight attendant gave her water, he said.

A few min later, Desir said she was having trouble external respiration and asked for O, but a flight attendant twice refused her petition, Oliver said Lord's Day in a phone interview.

After the flight attendant refused to administer oxygen to Desir, she became distressed, pleading, "Don't let me die," Joseph Oliver recalled.

Other rider aboard Flight 896 became agitated over the state of affairs, he said, and the flight attendant, seemingly after phone audience with the cockpit, tried to administer oxygen from a portable tank and mask, but the tank was empty.

Two doctors and two nurses were onboard and tried to administer oxygen from a sec tank, which also was empty, Joseph Oliver said.

Desir was put on the floor, and a nurse tried CPR, to no avail, Joseph Oliver said. A "box," perchance a defibrillator, also was applied but didn't mathematical function effectively, he said.

"I cannot believe what is occurrence on the plane," he said, sobbing. "She cannot get up, and nothing on the plane works."

Oliver said he then asked for the plane to "land right away so I can get her to a hospital," and the pilot agreed to divert to Miami, 45 minutes away. But during that time, Desir died, Oliver said.

"Her last words were, 'I cannot breathe,'" he said.

Desir, 44, was pronounced dead by one of the doctors, Joel Shulkin, and the flight continued to Kennedy International Airport without stopping in Miami, with the woman's body moved to the floor of the first-class section and covered with a blanket, Oliver said.

American Airlines spokeswoman Sonja Whitemon wouldn't comment Sunday on Oliver's claims of faulty medical equipment. Shulkin, through his attorney, Justin Nadeau, declined to comment on the incident out of respect for Desir's family.

American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp. And based in Fort Worth, Texas, is the largest domestic airline.