"It was devastating to say the least. Initially everyone said that everyone was accounted for and everyone was okay. So I couldn't understand how that could happen at that time...that she could have passed. 'Cause everyone seemed fine when they got out of the airplane."
“Poor Fuddy - the only one that managed to drown.”
Of all the people aboard the aircraft, Fuddy’s physical condition was probably the worst risk for surviving conditions of hypothermia and exhaustion in those rough seas. The water temperature was something like 77-78.1F. If Fuddy’s core body temperature was reduced to 90F, which is mild hypothermia to 86F or less, which is severe hypothermia, then the trauma of the crash combined with the hypothermia could have caused her respiratory rate, heart rate, hypoglycemia to crash and result in unconciousness and/or some form of fatal cardiac or renal failure.
She didn’t drown. She was fine and in a life jacket, according to the reports, and everybody except the deputy director of health was surprised to find that she had died.
From the article:
“Kawasaki says he did not know about the death of Loretta Fuddy until he got back to land.
“It was devastating to say the least. Initially everyone said that everyone was accounted for and everyone was okay. So I couldn’t understand how that could happen at that time...that she could have passed. ‘Cause everyone seemed fine when they got out of the airplane.”
Yamamoto saw Fuddy let go his hand and go unresponsive and he apparently didn’t tell anybody. He was aware that she needed to be calmed down - apparently because she was panicking or in distress - and he didn’t tell anybody else.
When they made it onto Molokai just those 2 were taken to a “care home”, where the priest gave last rites to Fuddy and consoled a “distraught” Yamamoto.