American Airlines flight attendants let passenger die of heart attack while others disembarked, family says

A 62-year-old man in the throes of a life-threatening medical emergency died after American Airlines flight attendants failed to call for help until after the plane landed, taxied to the gate and all other passengers had disembarked – by which time it was too late to save him, his family alleges.

John William Cannon suffered a fatal heart attack in the back of an ambulance as EMTs rushed him to Mercy Medical Center in Durango, Colorado, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Cannon’s son, who is now also the administrator of his estate.

The Kentucky resident was visiting to attend his best friend’s daughter’s wedding, attorney Joseph LoRusso, who is representing the Cannons in court, told The Independent.

LoRusso, himself a commercial airline-rated pilot, described the apparent lack of urgency in summoning assistance for the elder Cannon as “unbelievably frustrating.”

“How long does it take to deboard an airplane? 20, 30 minutes? That’s critical time,” LoRusso said on Wednesday.

Cabin crews are trained in CPR, and all commercial airliners have been required since 2004 to carry defibrillators onboard, LoRusso went on.

“Nobody’s expecting a flight attendant to be a doctor, but you have to at least attempt a recovery,” he said.

If things had played out differently, Cannon would “probably” be alive today, according to co-counsel Jessica McBryant.

“The emotional side of this is not just in losing a family member, but in how it went down,” McBryant told The Independent. “How alone and scared he must have been.”

American Airlines officials and the lawyer defending the carrier in the Cannon case did not respond to requests for comment.

April 28, 2023, began like any other day for Cannon, who, at about 12:30 p.m., caught American Airlines flight 1444 from Louisville, Kentucky, to Dallas-Fort Worth, where he would get a connection to Durango, according to his son’s complaint, which was filed initially in Denver County District Court and removed to Denver federal court Tuesday. While deplaning, Cannon fainted and collapsed on the jetway, the complaint states.

It says American employees helped Cannon back to his feet, then, just over two minutes later, sent him off so he wouldn’t miss his connecting flight.

During the flight to Durango, Cannon “entered a stage of medical crisis which resulted in him becoming unresponsive,” the complaint continues.

“Despite Mr. Cannon’s escalating medical crisis, the… flight crew delayed requesting medical assistance until after the aircraft had landed, taxied to the gate, and all other passengers had deplaned,” it goes on.

One of the crew members told emergency dispatchers that Cannon was “in and out of consciousness with labored breathing,” according to the complaint. Firefighters were first on the scene, and gave Cannon oxygen while waiting for medics to arrive, the complaint states. It says they then removed Cannon from the aircraft and loaded him into an ambulance, where he soon went into ventricular fibrillation arrest, the most frequent cause of sudden cardiac death, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“The ambulance crew performed approximately ten minutes of chest compressions, administered two doses of epinephrine, and delivered multiple Automated External Defibrillator (AED) shocks,” the complaint states.

However, it says, their efforts were ultimately for naught. Cannon was pronounced dead at 1:29 am the following morning.

Cannon’s best friend was waiting for him at the gate when the flight landed and disgorged everyone aboard, except Cannon, according to LoRusso.

“Next thing he knows, EMS pulls up and they’re pulling John off,” he told The Independent. “It was business as usual until they could get all the passengers away, and then, all of a sudden, it became an emergency… It seems like it’s become a persistent issue, where these flight crews are ‘event averse.’ Like, if you downplay things and attempt to sweep them under the rug, that’s the go-to play these days.”

LoRusso said American should never have allowed Cannon to get on his connecting flight in Dallas, given his condition. To that end, the lawsuit charges the airline with, among other things, negligently failing to deny boarding to an individual in medical crisis.

“It’s important for crews to realize that if someone’s in a medical crisis, they’re well within their rights to say, ‘We’re not going to board you,” LoRusso said. “If somebody has labored breathing, in what world would you put him in an airliner, in a cabin pressurized up to 8,000, 9,000 feet? That’s crazy.”

Additionally, the suit calls American out for failing to give reasonable first aid onboard the aircraft, failing to take reasonable steps to turn… Cannon over to a physician in a timely manner, failing to pay appropriate attention to [Cannon’s] medical condition, and failing to prioritize… Cannon in the deboarding process once he exhibited signs of extreme physical distress onboard the aircraft.

Last year, relatives of a 14-year-old boy who went into cardiac arrest and died aboard an American flight from Honduras to New York City sued the airline, saying the plane’s defibrillator was faulty. The case was later dismissed over a jurisdictional issue.

Cannon’s family is seeking unspecified damages for mental anguish, suffering, bereavement, loss of companionship, attorneys’ fees and funeral expenses.

“The ultimate goal of any lawsuit is to make things safer in the future,” McBryant told The Independent. “While this case is about John Cannon and his family, we want American Airlines to… hold people accountable for what happened so it doesn’t happen again.”