10-05-2025
Tribute to beloved East Bethel woman who died on Delta flight from MSP to London
A family has paid an emotional tribute to a woman from East Bethel who tragically died during a flight between the Twin Cities and London, England.
Rachel S. Green, 44, was traveling with her mother Mary on the direct Delta flight between Minneapolis-St. Paul International and London Heathrow on Sunday, Apr. 30.
Her sister, Roxanne Carney, told Bring Me The News that Rachel asked her mother if she could sleep on her shoulder, and when her mother woke up with a couple of hours of the flight to go, "Rachel was cold and unable to wake up."
Green was pronounced dead after 30 minutes of CPR, and was taken to a coroner's office in London, with Delta providing a hotel and a flight back for her mother.
Carney says "we have no idea" what caused her death, with autopsy results still pending, but authorities say it's not suspicious and it's presumed to be natural causes.
Her sister has launched a GoFundMe not only to help the family with the costs of Green's cremation in London, transfer back to Minnesota, a memorial, and a funeral, but also to provide donations in her name to the Lakeshore Players Theatre, with which she had become involved since her return to Minnesota.
"Rachel was truly an amazing person. I know many people say this about their loved ones but she was beyond selfless and thinking about her leaving us too soon is very difficult to understand," Carney said.
"She was the absolutely best aunt in the world to my son Jack who was her everything," she continued, adding that Green was the "best dog mom ever" to her beloved dog Riley, whom she "spoiled ... and indulged her in the best things in life."
An attorney by trade who had been practicing in Florida for much of career, Green had returned to East Bethel in recent years partly to help care for her great aunt, who was battling cancer.
While in Florida, Green was struggling with GI issues and then developed a severe thiamine deficiency that turned into "an episode of full blown ataxia and polyneuropathy," nerve conditions that required weeks in the ICU and then physical rehab as she regained her ability to walk, which she achieved with the aid of a cane.
After returning to Minnesota, where the healthcare was – in Carney's words – "100 times better," Green reconnected with her great loves: live theatre, through her involvement with the Lakeshore Players, reading, and writing.
A "brilliant writer," Carney said, Green wrote a book in her 20s that she never tried to get published, and at the time of her death was working on another book, a historical fiction based on the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the 12th Century Queen of France and England.
"This was the whole motivation going to England," her sister continues, "To research places and to feel the environment for her writing. She had a trip to France planned in September for the same research purposes."
"A dream of mine would be to get this book published for her. This was her intention and she took the book very seriously pouring all of her time and love into writing," she continued.
The family is now dealing with heartbreak and loss of, in Carney's words, "the most loving positive person I have ever known.
"I know everyone who ever met her would say the same. She was a devoted Catholic, even when others in the church were not kind. She never gave up on her faith nor did she waver in her kindness.
"She was truly a Saint."
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