Welp, that seems to be the start of the zombie apocalypse

[Recursion]

http://gawker.com/aer-lingus-passenger-flips-out-bites-fellow-passenger-1737240181

A 24-year-old man became agitated on an Aer Lingus flight from Lisbon to Dublin, bit another man, fell unconscious, and later died, reports The Guardian.

The Irish Mirror says the man “ran amok” and was restrained after becoming “extremely violent.” A doctor on board attempted to treat the man after he fell unconscious, but he could not be saved.

...

Ominously, a second man from the flight has been taken to the hospital. The remaining passengers were transported to Dublin via bus.

[CoffeeCat]

1. Where are Rick and Michone...

...when you need them?

This is weird though.

[ladyVet]

10. All you need is Daryl Dixon. <3 nt

[PatrickforO]

2. We are about due for a worldwide plague or some other disaster that wipes most of us out.

The worldwide colonialist, earth-destroying, neoliberal capitalist bankers have made life a living hell for billions of people. Just for profits. That's it. Millions have died for the sake of profits. Our 'civilization' is a cancer on most of the earth, and we're destroying it just to make money.

Our species is the only one of which it can be said that if we went extinct all other life on earth would be better off.

Well...THAT wasn't very cheerful. Sorry about that! Think about kittens, everyone...

[ronnie624]

3. Probability (or improbability) granted us an opportunity and we blew it. n/t

[librarylu]

5. Kittens can be extremely violent

May I think about flowers instead?

[Hortensis]

6. LOL!

[ladyVet]

11. Look at the flowers, librarylu. Just look at the flowers. nt

[Shandris]

18. I remember in some book, I think it was in the forward to The Stand...

..., the author notes that mankind has had a huge die-off roughly every 100 years, and we were overdue because the last one was...Spanish Flu? Some flu outbreak right before the turn of the 20th century.

Always made me wonder about a later film, 12 Monkeys...

('huge' is obviously a relative term, but you get the picture! )

[PatrickforO]

19. Now that you mention it, the last big 'die off' from a disease was the flu pandemic.

It lasted from January 1918 – December 1920, and was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people (a little over 1/3 of the 1.8 billion living then) across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—three to five percent of the world's population—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. Source Wikipedia.

So, 'huge' is a relative term. Now there are 7.3 billion, and such a die off would today infect just over 2 billion people and would kill between to 220 to 365 million people.

However, due to advances in biological warfare (we're great at killing lots of people really fast), as well as the evolution of natural diseases like Ebola there are disease strains that are over 90% fatal. Should something like this break out, then up to 6.6 billion would die and there would be about 730 million people left.

[Recursion]

25. HIV-AIDS has (so far) infected 80 million and killed 40 million

That's not quite at the 1918 scale but without continued work it could conceivably still get there...

[sarisataka]

4. Make a plan...

[tblue37]

13. Are they doing the OWS twinkle fingers agreement gesture? nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. It may have been drugs: Portuguese woman arrested over man's death on Aer Lingus plane

Irish police have arrested a Portuguese woman in connection with the death of a man on an Aer Lingus flight from Lisbon to Dublin.
...
She is being held under the Irish Republic’s Drug Trafficking Act.

A postmortem is being carried out at Cork University hospital on the man who, according to reports, bit another passenger during the flight and had to be restrained before he eventually lost consciousness. He is understood to be of Brazilian origin.
...
Luggage was examined and a substance was discovered in the bags of the woman who was arrested. The substance has yet to be analysed. The woman was taken to Togher Garda station for questioning.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/portuguese-woman-arrested-over-mans-death-on-aer-lingus-plane

If he was smuggling drugs internally and the packaging burst, then an overdose with nasty effects could happen.

[Blue_Tires]

9. +1

[Recursion]

24. Oh, man, that's awful

And hospitalizing the bit guy makes perfect sense if it broke his skin.

[mercuryblues]

8. first

a shooting at Zombie fest in Florida, now this.

[KamaAina]

14. There was a shooting at Zombiecon?!

My stepsister was there!

[Blue_Tires]

12. Dumb jokes aside, this person was clearly a mule:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1019/735776-aer-lingus-death/

[tblue37]

16. From the article you linked to:

(snip)

The post mortem was conducted at Cork University Hospital by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster.

It was completed this evening.

During the examination a number of packages were recovered from the man's body.

RTÉ News understands that at least one of them was ruptured.

(snip)

[Recursion]

23. Oh geez. That's awful

Imagine a half kilo of ketamine (or whatever) hitting your stomach at once, without warning...

[KamaAina]

15. Why was Mike Tyson going to Ireland?

[Calista241]

17. Save yourselves! N/t

[Initech]

20. I for one welcome our new zombie overlords!

[X_Digger]

21. Did they cut off his head, and why does the airline sound vaguely like a sex act?? n/t

[Recursion]

22. I know, right?

Apparently it's Gaelic for "air fleet"