BA passengers share first class cabin with dead traveller

Daily Mail UK ^ | 23:01pm on 4th December 2006 | RAY MASSEY

[james500]

First Class travellers on a British Airways transatlantic flight were horrified when they were forced to sit next to a dead body for three hours.

The elderly passenger had died of a heart attack just minutes earlier and was carried into their cabin to continue the journey to America.

[raygun]

I concur. The prevailing sentiment is that death is some sort of macabre event. People are both fascinated, and repulsed by it - it having some creepy connotations to it - when in fact it should be celebrated; as bittersweet as it may be.

However, and that notwithstanding, what an opportunity for somebody filled with the Holy Spirit to use this incident to bridge with what essentially is a "captive" audience. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, that's where the rubber meets the road. What happens next is a question that is on a great deal of people's minds. Such an event is the epitome of opportunity to practice open-air evangelism, albeit perhaps without the paint and easel set (unless one brought it as carry-on). What an opportunity to grab the stewardess' microphone and address the passangers en masse?

I'd be convicted to questioning people to contemplate their own mortality. That this is the final event that is coming in everybody's life at one point or another, for some sooner than for others, and no amount of "planning" is going to alter that fact. In fact all our plans mean diddle squat in the grand scheme of things; our lives are nothing but a vapor.

"Listen, lets say hypothetically that I've 5 minutes left to live, and then there'll be two corpses aboard this flight. Can you tell me what I need to do to get to heaven?" From there it'd be an easy segue to May I Ask You A Question, or lead everybody down the Roman Road, lead everybody in The Sinner's Prayer, and then sing a couple of hymns, e.g., Amazing Grace, When We All Get to Heaven, It Is Well With My Soul, or Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.

Then festivities could be handed over to the Irish aboard the flight, and the drinks would be flowin' "on-the-house". Let me tell you, there are no teary eyes at an Irish funeral. Did you know if you mix up the letters of funeral it spells "real fun"? People would be remarking as the passenger were deplanning, "Wow, you guys must've had a real nice flight, huh?" "Oh, yeah, let me tell you 'bout it. Let me ask you a question..." And I'd have distributed hundreds of May I Ask You A Question tracts to boot.

The blessed hope of a resurrection (both spiritual and bodily) in Christ Jesus should be a blessing to all those pesent at that event. I'm certain that atheists, agnostics and scoffers who choose to ignore the message of the Gospel can find comfort and solace in their own fashion. Maybe not, but then that's their special little problem (not mine).

[null and void]

I'm not afraid of death because I don't believe in it. It's just getting out of one car, and into another. - John Lennon

[raygun]

I don't disagree outright, per se, but I'd have very strong reservations with respect to the destiny of my eternal soul dependent upon John Lennon's theology (or lack thereof). However, but to humor you: supposing your analogy were true, the question would emminently boil down to whether one is crawling out of the wreckage of one car and climbing into another that either has air-conditioning, or one that is a blazing inferno. Back in the day there was a song titled Crawling From the Wreckage. I'd like to qualify Lennon's sentiment with that song, the aforementioned musing.

[steveo]

Audrey Griswold: She breathed on me! A dead person breathed on me!

[raygun]

Crawling From The Wreckage
by Dave Edmunds
album: Dave Edmunds Band Live: I Hear You Rockin' (1987)

Got out really early from the factory
Driving like a nut in the rain
Don't think I was acting so hysterically
But I didn't see a thing until it came
Man, the drunks were verbal in the takeaway
Beating up the Chinee at the counter
I put a few inside me at the end of the day
I took out my revenge on the revolution counter

Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
You'd think by now at least
That half a brain would get the message
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand new car

In walks Bud with his exploding nose
He'd been giving it maximum today
He shouted, how the devil, you in trouble I suppose
But all you ever do is run away
Gunned up the motor inta hyperdrive
I wasn't gonna take any of that
Don't get bright ideas about a suicide
Cause all I ever hear is zoom bam bam past me

Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
You'd think by now at least
That half a brain would get the message
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand new car

Crawling, crawling, crawling from the wreckage
Crawling, crawling, crawling from the wreckage
Crawling, crawling, crawling from the wreckage

Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Bits of me are scattered in the trees and in the hedges
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand new car

Nothing seem to happen that ain't happened before
I see it all through flashes of depression
I drop my drink and hit some people running for the door
Gotta make some kind of impression
Cause when I'm disconnected from the driving wheel
I'm only half the man I should be
But metal hitting metal is all I feel
And everything is good as it possibly could be

Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
You'd think by now at least
That half my brain would get the message
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand new car

Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Bits of me are scattered in the trees and on the hedges
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand new car

Crawling from the wreckage
Crawling from the wreckage

[null and void]

I don't disagree outright, per se,

Liar.

;^P

[raygun]

Pants on fire?

[null and void]

ROTFLOL!

[raygun]

I probably listened to that song as many - if not more - as that outright lying and contradictory song Spirit in the Sky as any other hedonistic Lennonesque feel-good, New Ager mantra as that, and all of it has always creeped me out a bit out.

I'll tell you this: if there ever was some reason to go into Cabrini Green in Chicago for no "plausible" reason other than to flaunt fate and take my life in my hands (or an attempt to reach the "lost"), then to take the bull by the horns and commandeer the stewardesses microphone on this particular flight would be a no-brainer.

In this case, the pilots would have had the cockpit door open, and their heads be craned, one ear cocked down the gang-way (as they're flying), and everybody'd be listening to me.

With respect to everything I've said so far, know one thing: the Lord's Word does not go out and return unfullfilled. When we're all sitting around in the lounge of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and sucking down Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters, I'm going to find that one evangelist on that plane who could've - but didn't - stand up, and ask them "Why?". What were you afraid of? Death? Scorn? Ridicule? Be not afraid of those that can destroy the body, but he that is a destroyer of souls (prowling like a lion roaring for those to devour).

Its a good thing that I've never been on such death-flight: I'd be solely responsible for some sort of international incident; wars would probably ensue resultant my actions.

D'oh.

"Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life" -John 6:47 (KJV)

[Central Scrutiniser]

It does happen from time to time.

When you are over water, nothing you can really do.

But, Continental Micronesia had it tough, on a Guam to Honolulu flight a guy died, and they had no alternate landing sites due to the size of the plane.

In fact, the new A340-600 actually has a place to store a body, should someone die on board, as their flights can extend 17 hours non stop.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Not just bladder.

[null and void]

There is a time and place for everything.

That might be the time to lead a prayer for the departed, but I think proselytizing might be a bit much.

YMMV

[dfwgator]

Audrey Griswold: She breathed on me! A dead person breathed on me!

"O God, ease our suffering in this, our moment of great dispair. Yea, admit this kind and decent woman into thy arms of thine heavenly area, up there. And Moab, he lay us upon the band of the Canaanites, and yea, though the Hindus speak of karma, I implore you: give her a break. "

[derllak]

YMMVTNSHU! :P

[raygun]

Your sentiment sounds like something right out of Ecclesiastes.

I can't tell you how I'd actually react in that situation without actually being in it. Maybe I'd throw Isa 53 in everybody's face as hard as I could. Maybe I wouldn't do any of all that, and just wait for the time when we all were sucking down Pan-Galactic Gargle-blasters and trembled in wait for that RayGun character that I knew to be chasing me my entire life.

Perhaps I just sit back and do nothing whatsoever (and take a gamble that nobody notices that I had a chance at influencing the outcome).

[null and void]

Gesundheit!

[ARealMothersSonForever]

The elderly passenger had died of a heart attack just minutes earlier and was carried into their cabin to continue the journey to America.

Even the Brits are just dying to come to America.

I know, I am so going to he11 for that.

[raygun]

Dude, roll the plane that way, and this way, and wave it a bit up and down. Everybody'll come to their own conlusions right quick, we close the cock-pit doors and get on with flying. What say you?

O.k., make it so.

[null and void]

Your sentiment sounds like something right out of Ecclesiastes.

Hey, just because I'm not a Christian, doesn't mean I'm unfamiliar with the Bible...

[derllak]

Hey, be nice....no cussing on a dead thread! :P

At least this poor guy didn't go out in a nursing home
taped up with tubes and drugged out. Sounds like he got to live a full life. I hope I'm so lucky!