I found the contrast between these two stories rather bizarre.

Whilst visiting her family in Chicago, my girlfriend heard about a case, reported here, where a guide dog (seeing-eye dog in American English) got sick on a domestic flight in the USA and pooped in the aisle, twice on the same flight. The smell was so bad that the flight was diverted, and the mess was cleaned up on the ground, before continuing to its destination.

In contrast, whilst I was flying back from an assignment in Bangkok on a Qatar Airways flight to Doha, the man sitting one seat away from me died, and the flight was not diverted. I couldn't find a news report about the event (maybe one is available in Arabic). The unfortunate traveller, from Saudi Arabia, was fairly old, and obviously sick; he had some medication with him for his condition. His, son, travelling with him, asked the cabin crew for oxygen for his father, when he started to have breathing difficulties, but the regulations did not allow them to administer oxygen or other medication. Eventually the father seemed to improve a little, and with the help of his son, attempted to go to the toilet (less than 2 metres from seat to toilet). The effort of this movement was too much for the gentleman: he collapsed half in and half out of the toilet and eventually died.

When he collapsed, I checked the moving map display, and decided that we would probably be diverted to somewhere in India or Pakistan, but we were not. I don't think that diverting would have saved him, but I am surprised that they didn't try.

I do have to say that the cabin crew, and the medical staff who were passengers on the flight, tried valiantly to save him, administering CPR (which is very physically demanding work) and defibrillation for over an hour. Eventually they left him on the floor of the galley area where they had been treating him, covered him with a blanket, and carried on with the normal business of the flight: serving refreshments and breakfast.

The son, and the rest of the family of the deceased, have my deepest sympathy.

It does make you wonder, though, what the criteria are for diverting a flight: what kind of medical emergency qualifies for an unplanned landing?