The top story at CNN for the last twenty-four hours has been about airport passenger Carol Ann Gotbaum, a 45-year old woman who was found dead in a Phoenix airport holding cell after being arrested on a disorderly conduct charge. Witnesses at the airport say Gotbaum had been running around the concourse "yelling and screaming." Airport workers told the New York Daily News that Gotbaum was hollering, "I'm not a terrorist! I'm a sick mom! I need help!" Commenting on how she might have died, Police Department Spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill says Gotbaum might have strangled herself trying to escape from the handcuffs while in the cell. 

While many readers of the Gotbaum tragedy debate whether or not U.S. airports have become a police state, a recent Heathrow airport experiment conducted by neurophyschologist Dr. David Lewis comes to mind. In "Stress Levels at Heathrow May be Fatal," Dr. Lewis monitored passengers' heart rates as they went through airport check-in and security procedures — but before those passengers actually boarded a plane. Lewis concluded that some passengers experienced such intense stress levels that their heart rates exceed levels "recorded by Formula 1 drivers, free-fall parachutists, and victims of knife-point muggings."

Travellers passing through Heathrow Airport are under so much psychological stress they may be at risk of death, a leading neurophyschologist says.

Dr David Lewis carried out an experiment on four travellers at Heathrow, attaching chest monitors to record heart rate, pressure pads on their arms to measure blood pressure and sensors on their fingertips to measure changes in physiological stress.

Lewis says passenger heart rates peaked at nearly four times the resting level for healthy adults, and physiological stress levels exceeded those recorded by Formula 1 drivers, free-fall parachutists and victims of knifepoint muggings, UK newspaper The Times reports.

"The conditions at Heathrow Airport and the stress levels that passengers are routinely subject to poses a very grave danger to the health of travellers at the airport," Lewis says.

"This condition is known medically as tachycardia, which can at times prove fatal. Even under intense exercise you wouldn't normally see these levels, which given that our travellers were not exerting themselves physically, reflects the high level of psychological stress they were under."

The study, carried out on behalf of airline Silverjet, claims that the main causes of the stress were queues, unfriendly and impatient staff, lack of information, burly security and inadequate facilities.

Reported by Elizabeth Clifford-Marsh (From airport-technology.com)

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