Sky Snippets: Medical Emergencies On A Plane

image courtesy of MSN.com

Before I begin, I'd like to clarify that I am not medically trained and have very little knowledge of how to save a life beyond the standard CPR course we were given in initial training. A great deal of responding to an isolated emergency effectively is being at the right place at the right time with a pinch of luck and some quick thinking. There are people far better suited to help folks who need immediate medical attention than I, but at 35,000 feet in the air sometimes the flight attendant is a passenger's best hope. In other words, I don't want to take more credit than is due.

With that said, I've had 2 serious medical emergencies on my flights. On the first, I was working the flight, but on the second I was just a passenger commuting back to my base in Charlotte.

The first time, an elderly gentleman had a heart attack. His wife frantically pushed the call button on the overhead panel. I was not the first flight attendant to respond. The first one immediately called the Captain to notify him of the emergency situation incase an emergency landing may be necessary. The Captain calls Medlink (the doctor service providing advice and remote care to flights), and the second flight attendant besides myself decides to station himself outside the door near the flight deck incase the old man is faking us out in order to create "a distraction from a terrorist attempt." I still think this was kind of silly (this was an old white guy who joked with me as he got on the plane about how to make a "pine soda" with a toothpick and water), but they thought it was necessary.

Once I figured out what had happened (the first flight attendant, in her anxiety, forgot to do an ALL-CALL and let me know at the back what was going on) I grabbed the AED, and asked the first flight attendant to help me carry the gentleman to the back galley so he could lay flat (there was NO way I could carry him by myself and yes, normally I would not lay someone on a probably-not-terribly-sanitary galley floor but let's remember this was an emergency).

After we got the gentleman on the floor, I ascertained that he did not have a pulse and was not breathing. I told the other flight attendant that I was going to begin chest compressions before removing his shirt/chest hair and using the AED. She protested, because at his age, she thought I might break a rib. I was kind of confused at her response, because I felt it was safe to assume he'd rather have a broken rib than be, you know, dead.

I began chest compressions. We're taught to do 2 rounds of 30 chest compressions, with mouth-to-mouth breaths in between. The gentleman "came back" in the middle of the 2nd round of compressions. It was the most surreal feeling...to realize I had made a difference in this man's life....perhaps even the difference of whether or not his wife would have left the plane a widow.  He seemed confused and very exhausted. We alerted the captain that the gentleman had come back to consciousness, and we landed as soon as possible to hand him off to paramedics.

The second time, I was practically asleep, about 30 minutes from landing in Charlotte. Its a short flight, and I usually try to either read or take a nap (sometimes a combination of both) on the way back. On the little CRJ's that take me to and from my beloved home, there is only 1 flight attendant on board, and usually I'll introduce myself as a fellow FA when I board. This girl on our flight couldn't have been older than 18 or 19, and she looked brand new.
Suddenly I see someone pressing the FA call button frantically, and I see our FA run to the row of passengers where the commotion is coming from. She looks very worried, and runs to the back and grabs the AED and PSK (passenger service kit).

She takes a look at a passenger (who I cannot see) and motions for me to come up. At this point I'm thinking....uh oh. Either a passenger is really angry and she needs some backup in diffusing it or someone is in trouble.
"This lady isn't breathing," she says, "I'm going to notify the captain and see if we can land in Knoxville."

"Did you check her pulse? " I ask, almost like a robot.

She had not. I do so, and the lady most definitely has a pulse. However, it's true that she isn't breathing and her face is almost a purpleish color. The flight attendant didn't want to touch the lady; too afraid to do something wrong and make it worse. However, I was of the opinion (given the fact that she was blue in the face and gurgling ominously) that if we waited much longer she probably would pass out and/or die from lack of oxygen. It was around that time that I noticed she had the kind of chain around her neck that dog tags are held on, and I remembered from training that sometimes people with specific medical needs or allergies wear identification. Sure enough, she had notification that she had a severe nut allergy. While I didn't see anything of the nut variety in the vicinity, I did notice a half eaten bag of Chex mix. To this day, I'm not sure if this was the culprit, but it was enough for me to ask the flight attendant to grab the lady's purse and see if there was an EPI pen.

Yep. She had one. I told the flight attendant to take the epi pen and use it on her inner thigh, but she wasn't sure how to use the epi pen. Neither was I, but I had a basic idea of how it worked, and I removed the cap and stabbed her. Within a few minutes, the lady's natural color returned to her face and she relaxed. We were able to make it to Charlotte and get some immediate medical attention to her after that.

Here are a few tips I came up with in retrospect if you ever run into an emergency aboard a plane. Again, I'm no professional, but some of these tips definitely helped me in a pinch and the rest are things I WISH I'd thought of.

• You can't be afraid to do your job. Communicate the problem to the Captain and the other flight attendants, but trust your training. If no one else is helping, do something. It may be the difference between a passenger's life or death.
• Trust your instincts. If you a passenger and your neck hairs bristle and you get an ominous premonition that something is wrong, check it out. A lot of times the passenger may not be able to let you know they are not ok.
• See if there are any medical personnel aboard to help out. In both my cases, there were not any to be had, but in most cases there will be a doctor, nurse, paramedic or even medical assistant available.
• A lot of times, people are nervous when they travel and will bring medications, EPI pens, identification tags, etc. Look for these if there is a problem. It may give you a valuable (and time saving) insight into the emergency situation.
• Refer to the manual under emergency situations if something is happening that you can't immediately identify. They have good descriptions of different medical conditions/reactions and clues to figure out which one it might be.

As always, good luck, keep your wits about you and you just might make a difference!

This post can be found at its original location here