The only way for the stewardess to check if a customer can sit in the exit row is to ask, "Are you willing and able to help passengers in the event of an emerge

The only way for the stewardess to check if a customer can sit in the exit row is to ask, "Are you willing and able to help passengers in the event of an emergency?" If the customer has no obvious outward appearance that might cause an issue, there's no way to know. The person in question in the exit row had a syncopal episode; syncope is defined on Wikipedia as, "Syncope, also known as fainting, is defined as a short loss of consciousness and muscle strength, characterized by a fast onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery." Having diabetes doesn't disqualify you from being an in exit row. Your other critiques are warranted; the lead FA shouldn't have acted the way the story portrays her to, and the medical kit was woefully understocked. As an aside, do you think that because it's Delta it makes it worse? Why would American or United or Southwest or Allegiant or Silver or any other airline be intrinsically better? This was a lapse in judgement for not having the medical kit stocked, possibly a large one, but one particular organization isn't necessarily worse than any other.