Leonardo Krys
944-2009was a travel agent whose 1991 heart attack aboard a
Lufthansa flight prompted U.S.-based airlines to install
Automated External Defibrillators, or AED, on their planes.
Heart attack
On November 30, 1991, Krys boarded a Lufthansa 747 in Miami, headed to Frankfurt, Germany. About an hour out, he suffered the symptoms of a cardiac infarction. The crew did not make an unscheduled landing and landed in Germany after a 10 hours flight. Upon landing, the plane was met by an ambulance which transported Krys to a hospital. At the hospital, the doctors concluded that Krys had indeed suffered a heart attack.
Krys and his wife argued that Lufthansa's crew acted negligently in responding to the symptoms displayed by Mr. Krys and thus aggravated the damage to his heart. They won a lawsuit against Lufthansa in Miami federal court which the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld.
[http://vlex.com/vid/krys-rebeca-lufthansa-german-airlines-36137815 Leonard Krys, Rebeca Krys, His Wife, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Lufthansa German Airlines, Defendant-Appellant., 119 F.3d 1515 (11th Cir. 1997)] Later the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
refused to hear the airline's appeal arguing that the incident should have been classified as an accident, per the Warsaw Convention, capping his payout.
The result of this suit prompted the airlines to review their safety manuals, including portable defibrillators and training the crew on how to use them.
Life
Leo (as he was known by his friend and family) was born in Argentina, and moved with his family to
Miami, USA
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at t ...
in the late 1970s, due to the local economical and political situation.
He owned a travel agency at the time of the heart attack, but the health crisis spurred a midlife career switch to acting. He acted in
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...
telenovelas
A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include ''teleserye'' (P ...
, local theater, an episode of
America's Most Wanted (as an Israeli searching for his son's killer), several independent films and in Latin pop star
La India
Linda Viera Caballero (born March 9, 1969), better known as La India, is a Puerto Rican singer and songwriter of salsa, house music and Latin pop. La India has been nominated for both Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards, winning the Latin Grammy ...
's video, Traicion, as a priest.
One of Krys' son,
Sebastian, is a four-time American
Grammy winner and eight-time
Latin Grammy Awards
The Latin Grammy Awards are an award by The Latin Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the Latin music industry. The Latin Grammy honors works recorded in Spanish or Portuguese from anywhere around the world that has been ...
producer and mixer (as of 2011)
Leonardo Krys died of a heart attack in Miami, on March 14, 2009.
External links
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krys, Leonardo
2009 deaths
Cardiac electrophysiology
Year of birth missing