Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez reportedly rushed to the aid of an elderly man who collapsed during a flight from L.A. to N.Y.C. this week
Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez reportedly rushed to the aid of a fellow American Airlines passenger after he had a mid-flight emergency.
Vasquez and a bodyguard were on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York this week when an unnamed man in his 70s fell to the floor while walking past the pair’s first-class seats, TMZ reported.
According to the outlet, Vasquez and the bodyguard jumped from their seats to help the man before a surgeon on board took over. The plane eventually returned to LAX, where the man — conscious at that point — was escorted off the plane by EMTs.
During the incident, Vasquez reportedly got in touch with her brother-in-law, who is a doctor, to help guide her through the steps to determine whether the man had a heart attack or suffered a brain bleed as a result of his fall. The attorney’s bodyguard also reportedly used his Apple Watch to check the man’s heart rate, per TMZ.
To thank her for her efforts, flight attendants reportedly gifted Vasquez bottles of merlot and champagne and called her “Wonder Woman.”
Derek Walls, a spokesman for American Airlines, confirms to PEOPLE, “On June 20, American Airlines flight 184 with service from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York (JFK) returned to Los Angeles due to the medical needs of a customer.”
Vasquez did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Along with fellow attorney Ben Chew and others on Depp’s legal team, Vasquez helped lead the Pirates of the Caribbean star, 59, to victory in court earlier this month, following the six-week defamation trial he brought against ex-wife Amber Heard.
Depp won all three defamation claims in the case and was awarded $15 million in damages by a seven-person jury, though the judge reduced the amount Heard, 36, will have to pay to $10.35 million due to a Virginia law capping punitive damages.
Also during the June 1 verdict, the actor was found to have defamed Heard on one of three claims in her countersuit. The Aquaman actress was awarded $2 million in damages.
Depp sued Heard for $50 million in damages, claiming she defamed him by writing a 2018 op-ed about coming forward with domestic-abuse accusations, though she did not mention him by name.
In an exclusive conversation with PEOPLE following the verdict, Vasquez admitted her team was “running on fumes” at one point during the trial as they worked around-the-clock on the defamation case.
“After court, we would go back to the hotel where we lived and was our little nest, if you will, for months,” she said. “We would change. We would have food served. Then we had two war rooms where we would be until sometimes 5:00 in the morning the next day. It was very intense.”
Vasquez — who was made partner at her firm, Brown Rudnick, the week after the verdict — said collaborative efforts went into those big moments in the Fairfax, Virginia, court case.
“Before I did her cross and before I delivered the opening and closing arguments, I would go to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning,” she said. “And then my team would stay up till 5, 5:30 a.m., and slide whatever it was that we were working on under my door. I would wake up to them under my door and they would sleep for an hour, an hour and a half. Then we would all go to court together. I mean, we were really running on fumes.”
Vasquez added, “I was the one that delivered the cross-examination, but I was very clear that this wasn’t my cross examination. This was our team’s.”
[via]
