American Airlines Sued by Family of Woman Stricken on Flight

American Airlines is being sued by the family of a woman who was stricken on a flight and died at a hospital in Texas, the plane’s intended destination, although a doctor on board had urged an emergency landing to treat her enroute from Honolulu to Dallas.

Brittany Oswell, 25, and her military husband Cory Oswell were flying from Honolulu, where he was stationed, to South Carolina with a stop at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on April 15, 2016, The State reported.

According to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by her parents Christopher and Tina Starks, the newlywed became ill somewhere over Los Angeles with symptoms including dizziness, disorientation, and slurred speech before fainting.

She regained consciousness with the help of a doctor who was a passenger on board, the Sotuh Carolina newspaper said. Oswell, though, became ill again over Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was discovered on the floor of the plane's lavatory, having vomited and defecated on herself, according to the lawsuit.

"The doctor asked to land the plane three times," the family's attorney Brad Cranshaw told The State on Wednesday. "The doctor who was holding Brittany was begging them to land."

Cranshaw said the doctor also discovered the medical equipment on the plane was not functioning. The lawsuit claimed the plane's onboard defibrillator and two blood pressure cuffs all malfunctioned, ABC News reported.

The lawsuit charged that the doctor informed the crew that Oswell needed to receive proper medical care, but pilots decided not to divert because they were 90 minutes away from landing.

Oswell was transported to Baylor Medical Center after the plane made its scheduled stop at the Texas airport, where she was diagnosed with anoxic brain damage and an acute embolism, the lawsuit states, per ABC News.

Oswell never regained consciousness and was taken off life support on April 18, 2016, three days after being admitted to the hospital, according to the lawsuit.

"We absolutely felt like this was not taken very seriously," Tina Starks told ABC News. "She's no longer here to do anything with us and it's all because someone made a business decision to keep flying a plane when she needed emergency medical help that they could not provide because of inadequacies on board the flight."

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