Man Dies On Commercial Flight, Witnesses Say Blood Gushed From Mouth and Nose

A passenger died on a Lufthansa flight Thursday after reportedly losing ‘liters of blood’ that gushed from his mouth and nose.

The unidentified passenger, a 63-year-old German man, boarded a flight from Thailand to Germany.

According to Swiss German outlet Blick, witnesses said the man was visibly ill when he boarded the plane.

Witnesses said the man had “cold sweats” and was “breathing much too quickly.”

“A flight attendant then reacted and asked him if he was okay, she was very worried. But they still wanted to let him fly,” Karin Missfelder, a nursing specialist at the University Hospital in Zurich, told the outlet.

Missfelder said she told the flight attendant he needed to be examined by a doctor.

A young Polish man reportedly answered the call to look at the passenger.

According to reports, he asked the passenger how he was feeling, felt his pulse, and said he was OK.

However, the man’s condition worsened dramatically on the flight.

Passenger dies mid-flight after liters of ‘blood erupts from his mouth and nose’ https://t.co/fpU1ZxDMdg pic.twitter.com/4E31YkjIqK

— New York Post (@nypost) February 9, 2024

From Blick (translated):

Martin Missfelder says: “They then gave him a little chamomile tea, but he already spit blood into the bag that his wife held out to him.”

You could still have reacted. But the plane takes off. And the man’s condition worsens dramatically. He keeps spitting into the bag – and finally a gush of blood comes out of his mouth and nose. “It was absolute horror, everyone was screaming,” says Missfelder. The man lost liters of blood. The walls were also full.

The flight attendants immediately began resuscitation. “Unfortunately a bit amateurish,” as Karin Missfelder says. “But they lasted about half an hour,” she says. Although it was already clear that the man was no longer alive. “It was dead quiet on board.”

The man is carried into the galley and the plane has to fly back to Bangkok. The captain announced over the loudspeaker that the man had unfortunately died.

Man dies mid-flight when 'litres of blood' shoot out of his nose and mouth in front of screaming passengers https://t.co/GZp3iHMbpL pic.twitter.com/OSOIWRT5W5

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) February 9, 2024

The New York Post reports:

“Although immediate and comprehensive first aid measures were taken by the crew and a doctor on board, the passenger died during the flight,” a Lufthansa spokesperson confirmed in a statement.

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“Our thoughts are with the relatives of the deceased passenger. We also regret the inconvenience caused to the passengers of this flight,” the spokesperson said.

Flight data show it left Bangkok at 11:50 p.m. Thursday and landed back in Thailand at 8:28 a.m. Friday.

There, the passengers said they had to wait two hours without any guidance from Lufthansa before they were finally booked on another flight to Germany, with a stopover in Hong Kong.

But for Missfelder, the worst part was that the man’s wife now had to go through customs alone.

She said she regrets that she did not try to help.

“I should have intervened, but I saw that a doctor was looking after him, so I didn’t want to get involved,” she said, noting that “the man looked so bad, I don’t understand why the captain took off.”