A woman who suffered a mid-flight medical emergency on an Air Canada jet has died, despite courageous efforts by passengers to save her life and an emergency landing in Calgary.
The passenger began showing signs of distress and became unresponsive on the Vancouver-bound flight Tuesday night. Witnesses say that two doctors and a nurse came to her aid, performing CPR and giving her oxygen in the aisle of the plane.
The flight made an unscheduled stop in Calgary, and emergency crews were on standby on the tarmac to rush her to hospital.
Family members confirmed on Thursday that the passenger, who they identified as Surjit Kaur Sheenh, has since died. They said that Sheenh’s son was on the flight and stayed by her side as passengers attempted to resuscitate his mother.
Other passengers recalled the ordeal, saying that the pilot remained calm amid the emergency.
“It was very professional, there was not a lot of panic,” passenger Marc Saltzman recalled. “They told us what was happening.”
Another passenger, Hayden Ordel, told CTV Vancouver that he could tell something was wrong just by looking at the woman. He was among the group that tried to save the passenger’s life.
“It was chaos, but never did we stop fighting for this woman’s life for her,” Ordel said. “The superhero came out in all of us.”
Other travellers told CTV Calgary that the group continued to perform CPR on the woman until the plane landed in Calgary just after 11 p.m. local time.
With files from CTV Calgary and CTV Vancouver
