Released: Hawaii DOH Director Loretta Fuddy Cause Of Death; Cardiac Arrhythmia

[bsteadman]

Released: Hawaii DOH Director Loretta Fuddy Cause Of Death; Cardiac Arrhythmia

Birther Report
1/13/2014

Excerpt:

Health Director Loretta Fuddy died of cardiac arrhythmia
By Star-Advertiser Staff / AP

State Health Director Loretta Fuddy died of a cardiac arrhythmia because of stress following a December plane crash off Molokai, a Maui County police spokesman said today.

Cardiac arrhythmia is a disturbance in the normal heart beat.

Fuddy, 65, was one of nine people who were on board a Makani Kai Cessna Grand Caravan that crashed into the ocean after take-off about a half-mile from Kalaupapa on Dec. 11 and the only passenger to die.

The pilot and all eight passengers made it out of the plane before it sank. But they had to float in the ocean until the Coast Guard and Maui County helicopters rescued them.

In the water, Fuddy held hands with Health Department deputy director Keith Yamamoto as he tried to help her relax, said Rev. Patrick Killilea, who consoled Yamamoto after the ordeal. [...] - Continued @ By Star-Advertiser. Hat tip Pixel Patriot.

Maui police: Health Director Fuddy died from heart problems
KHON-2 Web Staff

Maui police say State Health Director Loretta Fuddy died from cardiac arrhythmia as a result of stress following last month's plane crash off Molokai.

Fuddy was one of nine people aboard the Makani Kai Air Cessna plane when it lost power and crashed into the water about a half mile off Kalaupapa. She was returning from Molokai for her annual visit as acting Mayor of Kalaupapa, which is part of her role as State Health Director. Fuddy was the only casualty.

She was 65 years old.

Police say the manner of death was accidental. [...] - Continued @ KHON-2. Hat tip Aloha Analytics.

Hawaii health director died of cardiac arrhythmia
Excerpt Via Jennifer Kelleher-AP News Time

The National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report on the crash said the single-engine plane floated for about 25 minutes before sinking.

Fuddy, 65, was healthy and didn't have any known heart problems, her brother, Lewis Fuddy, said Monday.

"She wasn't an anxious person," he said. "To be head of the Health Department, you have to have some cool nerves."

Fuddy gained attention in 2011 for her role in releasing President Barack Obama's Hawaii birth certificate to rebut claims he was born outside the U.S.

A spokeswoman said the Health Department had no comment on the cause of death.

[...] - Continued @ News Times.

Hawaiian health director died of irregular heartbeat after plane crash
By Daniel Arkin, NBC News

Authorities say the cause of death for the Hawaii health director who died after an airplane crashed off the island of Molokai was cardiac arrhythmia — an irregular heartbeat.

Loretta Fuddy died due to the stress from the horrific Dec. 11 plunge into the water after the single-engine Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft lost power, Maui police said Monday.

The pilot and eight other passengers aboard the aircraft all survived without significant injuries. They were rescued by emergency crews, said Richard Schuman, the president of Makani Kai Air. [...] - Continued @ NBC.

View the complete Birther Report presentation at:

http://www.birtherreport.com/2014/01...r-loretta.html

[bsteadman1]

Free Republic is running a thread titled, 'Maui Police release cause of Loretta Fuddy's death.', which was started1/13/2014 by 'machogirl'

The thread references a 1/13/2014 KITV News article - http://www.kitv.com/news/hawaii/maui...t/-/index.html

View the complete Free Republic thread at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3111409/posts

Excerpt from the original article:

Maui County police says the late state health director Loretta Fuddy died due to cardiac arrhythmia as a result of stress after a Makani Kai Air plane crashed off of Molokai last month.

An arrhythmia is a problem with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat.

Fuddy's death has been ruled as accidental.

On Dec. 11, the plane lost power off of Kalaupapa. Nine people were on board the plane including Fuddy. The pilot and seven other passengers survived the crash.

The pilot and a passenger who swam to shore have said Fuddy appeared fine while bobbing in the water after everyone exited the plane and waited for help to arrive.

Fuddy's brother, Lewis Fuddy, says she was healthy and didn't have any known heart problems.

Read more: http://www.kitv.com/news/hawaii/maui...#ixzz2qKtA6VTQ

Excerpts from comments to the thread:

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To: Jack Hydrazine

‘How do you detect an arrhythmia AFTER death?’

Good question. Here’s what I found re: autopsies & arrhythmia:
_
Dear ED, thank you for your question [re: detecting arrhythmia during an autopsy]. It’s difficult to answer your question in this forum since we can only give general information. When someone dies of sudden death, an electrical disturbance of the heart called an arrhythmia is most often considered to be the cause. However, an arrhythmia cannot be detected after death since the heart has to be electrically active to diagnose an arrhythmia. An ECG must be done to confirm an arrhythmia, but that is usually not possible before someone dies of sudden death without warning signs. Thus, arrhythmias are usually a diagnosis of exclusion. There are certain cardiac abnormalities that are associated with an arrhythmia, but many people who have arrhythmias have structurally normal hearts. Thus, if you have further questions, I suggest that you contact the medical examiner involved in the autopsy.

I hope this information is useful. Information provided in the heart forum is for general purposes only. Only your physician can provided specific diagnoses and therapies. Feel free to write back with further questions. Good luck!

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Heart-D...er/show/868581

59 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 10:20:53 PM by Fantasywriter

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To: Sacajaweau

Last bit I read was that the family REFUSED to confirm that she will NOT be cremated.

63 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 10:23:53 PM by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)

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To: Fantasywriter

There are certain cardiac abnormalities that are associated with an arrhythmia, but many people who have arrhythmias have structurally normal hearts.

So Fuddy had an heart abnormality and the coroner made an educated "guess" based on that? Or the coroner says lets call it a heart attack because that's the easy way out because of the controversy?

86 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 10:45:09 PM by Red Steel

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To: Fantasywriter

IOW, they couldn’t find a physical cause of death and desperately wanted to call it a natural death so they said she died because her heart stopped beating.

Got it.

98 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 10:55:19 PM by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)

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To: Seizethecarp; sheik yerbouty; nikos1121; Fred Nerks; null and void; Yaelle; afraidfortherepublic; ..

“Maui County police says the late state health director Loretta Fuddy died due to cardiac arrhythmia as a result of stress after a Makani Kai Air plane crashed off of Molokai last month.”

Yes, cardiac arrhythmia can cause death. But you really can't be anywhere near sure of that in this case unless you had her hooked up to an electrocardiogram or some kind of heart monitor just before she died! (You can be pretty darn positive that was NOT the case.)

Furthermore, were there any forensic pathologist(s) in on the autopsy? And what were the toxicology results - are they all complete yet? Some drugs or poisons can induce arrhythmias.

110 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 11:10:37 PM by justiceseeker93

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To: Fantasywriter

Thus, arrhythmias are usually a diagnosis of exclusion. .

Thank you, good info. Perhaps the times such condition is relevant is when the patient is under observation by medical professionals prior to death. Since that is not the case here, it suggests the report is worthless.

My first impression was that any plan for the plane accident and her time in the water would have a lot of moving parts. There are easier ways and thus the accident may not be relevant.

It seems very important to know of her behavior (meals, etc.), contacts with others, physical experiences and the like for the preceding hours; to say nothing of a thorough autopsy.

117 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 11:26:33 PM by frog in a pot ("To each according to his need..." -from a guy who never had a real job and couldn't feed his family)

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To: LucyT; null and void; Cold Case Posse Supporter; Flotsam_Jetsome; circumbendibus; Fantasywriter; ...

Here is what Cleveland Clinic says about sudden cardiac death, which they classify as a type of arrhythmia:

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/...ctric/scd.aspx

“Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a sudden, unexpected death caused by loss of heart function (sudden cardiac arrest). Sudden cardiac death is the largest cause of natural death in the United States, causing about 325,000 adult deaths in the United States each year. Sudden cardiac death is responsible for half of all heart disease deaths.”

“Sudden cardiac arrest is not a heart attack (myocardial infarction). Heart attacks occur when there is a blockage in one or more of the coronary arteries, preventing the heart from receiving enough oxygen-rich blood. If the oxygen in the blood cannot reach the heart muscle, the heart becomes damaged.

“In contrast, sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the electrical system to the heart malfunctions and suddenly becomes very irregular. The heart beats dangerously fast.”

“What are the risk factors of sudden cardiac arrest?”

“OBESITY”

Long list of many conditions Fuddy may or may not have had or been known to her brother, however obesity is an obvious risk factor for arrhythmia that she had

122 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 11:40:43 PM by Seizethecarp (Defend aircraft from "runway kill zone" mini-drone helicopter swarm attacks: www.runwaykillzone.com)

EXCERPTS FROM COMMENTS IN THE THREAD CONTINUED IN THE REPLY BELOW

[bsteadman1]

EXCERPTS FROM COMMENTS TO THE THREAD CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

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To: frog in a pot

“Thank you, good info. Perhaps the times such condition is relevant is when the patient is under observation by medical professionals prior to death. Since that is not the case here, it suggests the report is worthless.”

I don’t think much of it either. I’ve heard a lot about the toxicology report. When are they going to release that? Never, is probably a pretty good guess. I hope I’m wrong.

127 posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 11:49:23 PM by Fantasywriter

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To: butterdezillion

“I wonder if the interim health director appointed to replace Fuddy - Gary Gill - who has been the deputy director of the HDOH’s “Public Health and Environmental Laboratories” - has any potential influence over whatever pathologist lab did the tox testing.

We know how reliable some coroner’s offices can be.... cough, cough.

And there are poisons that don’t show up in a tox test, although I’m not sure about how quickly they act. Potassium acts very quickly...”

Those are excellent questions and observations, Butter. I’d like to know more about Gill. I’d actually like to know a little more about what’s going on w Yamamoto. He sure got passed over quickly, didn’t he? I hope the toxicology report is released. I wouldn’t count on it, though. Secrecy seems to be the rule where Obama is concerned.

137 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 12:28:43 AM by Fantasywriter

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To: butterdezillion; All

Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t potassium have an immediate impact on the electrical impulses in the heart.

Yes, the concentration of potassium in the blood must be within a quite narrow range in the normal living individual. Injecting a high dose of potassium (usually potassium chloride) through a vein can cause sudden death, by means of arrhythmia. I'm aware of homicides that have been committed by medical personnel in exactly that way.

Taking in a high dose of potassium orally can do the same thing, but not quite as fast.

149 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 1:18:41 AM by justiceseeker93

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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

The Coast Guard rescue swimmer who first saw Fuddy said that their protocols required him to pass her by because she was unresponsive. The people who most desperately need the help aren’t supposed to be helped, if what he said is true.

But the protocols say the exact opposite. Unless she was decapitated, charred, had her heart, lungs, brain, or liver detached from her body, or showed rigor mortis, she was not “obviously dead” and must have CPR performed on her, unless medical help was more than 30 minutes away. The critical-care hospital on Molokai was a 5-minute flight in the bigger HC-130 and a 10-minute flight in the helicopter. So they were required to hoist her up and start CPR immediately.

For some reason they didn’t want to do CPR on her, and lied about it to the media to try to explain why they didn’t do CPR on her.

They also didn’t get there until an hour after they received the call, when it is a 15-minute flight for the HC-130 and 20 minute flight for the MH-65. It was a straightforward situation; the weather wasn’t bad and the plane went down 1/2 mile from shore so any dangerous drifting would be outward from there, making the search part of the operation pretty simple - and that’s the part that sometimes takes extra time.

168 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 3:25:29 AM by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)

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To: cynwoody

Both Ornot and Peer violated Coast Guard protocols by passing Fuddy by.

They have equipped helicopters and the ability to hoist critically-injured victims to those helicopters because the people who man them are trained as EMT’s. I strongly suspect they have defibrillators on board. And even if they don’t, they have arms and mouths, and CPR is required if the person isn’t charred, isn’t stiff as a board from being dead 2 hours, and has head, heart, lungs, brain, and liver still attached to their body. “Victim is unresponsive” doesn’t cut it.

And to determine that the victim is unresponsive in the first place, they have to use the equipment in the helicopter if it is available - a stethoscope and a heart monitor. They didn’t even do that.

I know those guys are capable of better than that; they wouldn’t be where they’re at if not. So why did they violate the protocols and then go to the media and falsely say that the protocols demanded that they do what they did? Were they given orders to do exactly that? If not, then have they been disciplined for breaking the protocols?

170 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 3:49:26 AM by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)

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To: Jack Hydrazine

“They were very close to shore,” she contended. “In this instance, the crash could have been seen by shore.

The airport is outside of town and apparently the employees had closed shop early. Fuddy's plane was scheduled to depart at 3:35 but departed early around 3:15. Everyone agrees the engine failed in the first seconds from take off so they were well within sight of the airport. Another plane in the area had radioed the Molokai tower to request landing and Molokai had already heard the emergency beacon and asked if they would could see the downed plane. They saw it almost immediately and landed at the Kalaupapi airport around 4:00 to find no one there.

Why was the Kalaupapa Airport closed early? When did the last employee leave the property? Why did they leave before Honorary Mayor Fuddy's plane depart? Yes, she was the honorary mayor. All those passengers didn't walk to the airport, they had to be driven there by taxi, friends or family. The airport has been in a three year controversy as to where to build a fire truck garage because they don't want it to block the view of people seeing planes off. Not that the land is smooth and you can see forever around it. Are we to believe that all the airport employees when home early knowing full well that the "Mayor" was expected and that Fuddy's and the other passengers' rides hadn't bothered to see them off as is "custom"? The airport's home page states it's custom for people to come out and watch the planes.

193 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:47:39 AM by bgill

EXCERPTS FROM COMMENTS IN THE THREAD CONTINUED IN THE FOLLOWING REPLY

[bsteadman1]

EXCERPTS FROM COMMENTS IN THE THREAD CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

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To: bgill

“Another plane in the area had radioed the Molokai tower to request landing and Molokai had already heard the emergency beacon and asked if they would could see the downed plane. They saw it almost immediately and landed at the Kalaupapi airport around 4:00 to find no one there.”

On the inside of the door on the left side there’s usually a switch to throw that turns the emergency beacon on. Sounds like the pilot did that. The beacon was also probably picked up by Honolulu and satellites orbiting the Earth.

The pilot most likely also threw his radio over to 121.5 MHz and called out a mayday alert which Molokai and Honolulu would have certainly heard.

I would think that if Molokai tower acknowledged the emergency they would have stayed to assist the Coast Guard until the situation was over.

Very, very strange.

195 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 10:00:55 AM by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; me = independent conservative)

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To: cynwoody

I’ve shown the official document to prove you wrong and you’ve done nothing but say the same opposite thing over and over without offering one iota of documentation for what you’ve said. If what you’ve said is true - if those are the protocols that the swimmers abide by - it shouldn’t be hard to find some documents saying that. Go for it. Show me what ya got. But don’t waste all our time just spouting the same undocumented stuff over and over again.

And actually, there was a woman with shoulder-length brown hair who was closer to shore than either Puentes OR Holstein, if Holstein took 1 1/2 hours to get to shore. She is seen in the distance when Puentes took his selfie. I’ve got the close-up posted on my blog, at http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com...4/some-images/

Who was she? She was wearing a life vest with her face toward the camera but too far away for the facial features to be caught, except the contour of her eyebrow, apparently. Is she the mystery woman in the water on the wing close to Rosa Key, and just put her hair down? Is she somebody different? How many mystery women were there, whose involvement was hidden by the official folks (Coast Guard and NTSB) and the Makani Kai folks (pilot and owner)? Why are the company, the Coast Guard, and Makani Kai working together to hide the existence of this woman who WAS on the flight?

If that is the mystery woman we found out about a couple days ago, why was she able to get so close to shore so quickly before either of the guys? There was somebody on shore trying to help Puentes get to a place where he could reach the shore more easily. Might that person have been making sure Puentes DIDN’T reach the shore, like this mystery woman that nobody wants us to know about was able to do?

Way too many questions regarding what really happened and why these sources are lying to us, as can be seen through Puentes’ photos.

220 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 3:13:16 PM by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)

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To: butterdezillion

It sounds like the emergency personnel were intentionally delayed.

222 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 3:22:09 PM by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; me = independent conservative)

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To: Jack Hydrazine

According to their press release they got the call at 3:27pm. According to the Honolulu EMS, the 2 victims were picked up from the Honolulu airport at 6:30. That’s 3 hours for the Coast Guard to pick up 3 people - 2 of which were injured - and get them to an airport to be picked up by EMS.

I’ve read a good portion of the USCG’s protocol manual, which I linked here earlier, so I’ve seen some of the logistics issues, which can be quite complicated. But this was a good-weather day, the crash was close to shore so any dangerous drifting would be away from shore making the search easy, and the crash had already been sighted by another pilot in the area. There was nothing complicated about this mission.

Why did it take them 3 hours to deal with 3 people a 15-minute flight away from them?

224 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 3:31:15 PM by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)

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To: bjorn14

They were still in the water when the CG arrived - except for possibly 3 people who were either on the shore or within 50 yards of shore.

According to the reports based on an interview of the two swimmers, rescue swimmer PJ Ornot went first to Fuddy, decided she was unresponsive so he passed her by, and then hoisted Kawasaki who had a cut on his head and was later found to have a concussion. Mark Peer, in the other helicopter, hoisted a 70-sh-year-old who was waving and smiling and then - if you believe one of the stories - hoisted Fuddy. But the Coast Guard spokeswoman said the Coast Guard lifted 3 people out of the water, so the numbers don’t match.

And that was it. The Maui Fire/Rescue picked up all the rest who were picked up - 5 people, they said.

The total effort for the Coast Guard out of Honolulu lasted from 3:27 when they got to the call, to 6:30 when two victims were transferred to Honolulu EMS at the Honolulu airport. They lifted 3 from the water and they transported 2 to the Honolulu Airport by helicopter and one (the mystery woman nobody wants us to know even existed) directly to Queens Hospital via the HC-130.

227 posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 3:41:07 PM by butterdezillion (Free online faxing at http://faxzero.com/ Fax all your elected officials. Make DC listen.)