Craig Bingman wrote:
I understand your point, Derek, but I don't think you can say with certainty
that the emergency oxygen systems have never saved a life. To say that, we'd
really need to run the same disaster scenario twice, once with and once without
the oxygen masks. It might be that the masks popping down have saved lives by
preventing some folks from having heart attacks during depressurization
events. Maybe just by popping out and being reassuring in a silly dangly orange
way. Or by giving people something that they believe is purposeful to do during
a time of great stress.

And we need a placebo group to check this out where the oxygen masks
come down but _don't_ deliver oxygen to the passengers.
And another group where instead of oxygen masks, live tarantulas descend
onto the passenger's faces to see how many heart attacks that would
generate in times of extreme stress. Then there are those venomous
snakes in the cargo hold to consider. Tell the passengers about those
right after takeoff, and note if any have heart attacks right then and
there, or if it takes a flight attendant with a rubber snake attached to
her throat running screaming through the cabin to get the desired
effect. ;-)

Pat