Salvadoran Woman Died of Cardiac Complications

Marvin Manzanero

We also asked Doctor Manzanero for an update on the death of Maria Velasquez at the Philip Goldson International Airport.  The seventy-one-year-old woman was experiencing respiratory complications on board a United Airlines flight over the weekend, which had to make an emergency landing in Belize. According to Doctor Manzanero, the woman did not die of COVID-19 as she had a negative PCR test.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“All we know is that there was a flight, Houston to El Salvador, with a patient that starting having respiratory distress or at least some level of discomfort. They asked for an emergency landing; the team was alerted ahead of time, taking precaution. Of course we don’t know the history of what was happening, but the person had boarded a flight with a negative result for COVID-19. She was swabbed for COVID-19 with the rapid test that we had and she was given the assistance that we would in anybody who was having a cardiac arrest and she died. It’s a female who I understand was travelling alone, going back home; negative for COVID-19 so it is more than likely a cardiac condition. I believe that becomes a police case because we don’t have any history so that we would have been able to do a death certificate. The Embassy of El Salvador and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were alerted at the same time that that was happening, so that the provisions in that matter were taken care of.”