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Husband of Southwest Airlines victim speaks out about tragic incident
The heartbroken husband of the woman partially sucked out of a Southwest Airlines flight exchanged one last “love you” with her before she died — and recalled the moment he had to tell their children, “Mommy’s not going to come home.” Michael Riordan broke his silence a week after Jennifer, the mother of his two children, died April 17 after an engine suddenly exploded at 32,000 feet, blasting a shower of debris through the cabin. (www.foxnews.com) More...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Just to give everyone a sense of how delicate your brain is, you can die falling off a bike and hitting your head. Let's say the debris broke the window without penetrating the window. Now you have a partial ejection of your head and upper body out of the window where you are buffetted by winds in excess of 450 mph and temps of -65. Does your head hit the window frame and kill you instantly? Or let's say there was debris contacting her head when the window broke. Now you have blunt trauma at gunshot velocity impacting an undetermined amount of her head. Neither scenario seems survivable. Kudos to the personnel who did CPR, tho. In my job as an ER doc, I have had to tell many people that I could not save their loved ones. There is no good way to do this, a phone call hurts just as much as a face to face.
Good info... So many people don't realize how important it is to protect your head!
Seems when I logged in, the post I had written disappeared.
Mythbusters did do a show about catastrophic decompression of an aircraft. They got a fuselage sealed it up, compressed it and caused something to shoot thru a window. I don't remember if it was just a bullet or if they tried to break out a whole window, what the air volume in the A/C was, what the air pressure differential between A/C and outside and so forth was, but they 'proved' that you couldn't be sucked out. This was shortly after the airplane from Hawaii (?) had a huge section of skin torn off over the ocean.
As for notifying family, only if you are a public high visibility person does anyone show up at your door upon death. When my adopted son from Russia who had the true Russian super fatalistic attitude about death was accidently drowned in the Russian River, near Napa, Cal. we got a call (phone) from the local sheriff's department late in the evening. He would have loved the irony.
Mythbusters did do a show about catastrophic decompression of an aircraft. They got a fuselage sealed it up, compressed it and caused something to shoot thru a window. I don't remember if it was just a bullet or if they tried to break out a whole window, what the air volume in the A/C was, what the air pressure differential between A/C and outside and so forth was, but they 'proved' that you couldn't be sucked out. This was shortly after the airplane from Hawaii (?) had a huge section of skin torn off over the ocean.
As for notifying family, only if you are a public high visibility person does anyone show up at your door upon death. When my adopted son from Russia who had the true Russian super fatalistic attitude about death was accidently drowned in the Russian River, near Napa, Cal. we got a call (phone) from the local sheriff's department late in the evening. He would have loved the irony.
I remember that episode... They were correct... A bullet hole will not cause rapid decompression. They were proving that firing a gun would not cause rapid decompression.... However, they never tested a catastrophic window failure, and we certainly proved this time that... Yes you can be sucked out.
BJ: Sorry for your loss. I know what that river can be like. I fell out of an overturn canoe in that river and was surprised on how fast the river moves and I'm a very good swimmer. For a second I thought I would be sucked down but another in the group pulled me up. Yes, you can be sucked out! The flight attendant on that Aloha flight went out through the hole in the cabin roof. The only reason no one else was lost was because they were belted in and by the time the roof came off they were down to around 10,000 feet and there was no more O2 to suck out. The pressure had equalized.
I heard that she was wearing her seat belt. It wouldn't have made a difference since her upper body would have been sucked out. The belt kept her entire body from going out. When we fly we head for the back near the rear door and take an isle seat. Always wear a seat belt. If that doesn't work you're going to die!