Adventures In Air Travel

Of all the places to experience a medical emergency, I'd have to think that being on an airplane would rank as one of the worst (second only, perhaps, to being on a boat out at sea). Small, confined space, 30,000 feet in the air.... just not a lot of options as to what can be done. I always wondered what would happen if something did occur on a flight. Don't have to anymore.

On my flight back to Cincinnati from San Francisco, an older gentleman (he looked early/mid-60's) sitting three rows in front of me all of a sudden passed out and slumped over in his chair. I have no idea what happened to him (and never did find out), but his wife informed us that it was a condition he had (I think she mentioned it was related to his esophagus) and that he needed to be laid out on his back and he'd come to. Now, when you're someone my size, you're expected to assist in certain tasks. Reaching objects from high places, carrying heavy objects, frightening small children, etc., it all just comes with the territory. So when his wife said he needed to be picked up from his seat and laid in the aisle, I stood up and volunteered my services.

I don't know if he was breathing when I got him out of his chair (everything was happening pretty quickly), but he was definitely unresponsive. Completely out. And within 30 seconds of getting him on his back and elevating his legs, he came to. He was hurting, but he was awake. Now, a few things struck me about this situation. The first was how calm his wife was throughout it all. At no point did she seem out of control, which was a good thing because if she wasn't calm, I doubt anyone else would have been. This wasn't the first time it had occurred, and she knew exactly what needed to happened (she told us that when it did happen the first time, they thought it was a stroke; probably wasn't so calm then).

The second thing that struck me about this situation was the number of medical professionals present on the flight. I'm sure there are statistics and expected averages on these sorts of things, but our flight had two doctors and (at least) two nurses on board. I don't know if that's a lot, but it seemed like a lot. And to be honest, I'm not entirely certain one of the people helping out was a nurse. She was a cute French girl who seemed to have medical knowledge, but because of the noise on the plane and her accent, it was difficult to tell. Maybe she was just helpful because she was cute- I really don't know. As for the doctors on board, they were Johnny-on-the-spot when all this went down. There wasn't all that much for them to do (they took his vitals and sent the info to the cockpit, which I guess is how they determine whether an emergency stop is warranted), and they seemed to be knowledgeable about the man's condition once informed about it. Once they checked him out and determined he was stable, we had to get him out of the aisle and into some seats. And by "we" and mean "me." He'd spend the rest of the flight laying across a row, which again required me to pick him up and move him. It was much easier the second time around because even though he was pretty weak, he was at least conscience.

Finally, the last thing that struck me about this situation was the lady sitting across the aisle from me. She was MILF-ish woman traveling with her two kids (both aged between 8 and 13, I'm guessing) who looked like she was trying to look younger than someone who had two kids aged between 8 and 13. In fact, she looked a lot like Mrs. Ari from Entourage. During the whole situation, it seemed like she was trying to control the scene; she was badgering the flight attendants about the first aid and other medical equipement they had on board (even though none of it was needed) and seemed overly involved in that man's treatment (which amounted to little more than getting water and resting on his back). And she wasn't even one of the medical professionals I mentioned earlier; she was just married to a doctor (who wasn't on this flight). How do I know this? Because she told everyone. And she did so in a tone that seemed to imply that since she was married to a doctor, she had sufficent medical knowledge to help this man. She also mentioned that this was the third straight flight she had been on in which there had been some sort of medical situation (the last flight, she said, a lady had a heart attack and her husband saved her by performing a heart transplant right there on the plane... or something like that; she was talking and no one was really listening to her, she might have exaggerated a bit). I hope never to catch a flight with her on board again, not because of her streak of inflight medical emergencies, but because she was annoying as hell.

I have to say, even though it was a relatively minor situation, there were some tense moments. I guess it just comes with something, anything, going wrong while in the air. And it wasn't without benefit, at least for me. The smoked turkey sandwich and packet of M&M's I bought during the flight ended up being free simply because I helped out. So overall, not a bad deal. My involvement in said situation also lead to a rather odd encounter later, while waiting for my connecting flight.

While I was waiting at the gate in Cincinnati for my connecting flight to Dayton (see previous post for more on that nonsense), which was delayed for an hour because, HELLO!, they didn't have a pilot, I was approached by a girl who had been on the same San Francisco-Cincinnati flight as me and was also waiting to go to Dayton.

Girl: Hey, you were on the flight from San Francisco, right? You helped the guy who passed out?
Me: Uh, yeah, that was me.
Girl: That was crazy. I've never been on a flight were anything like that had happened before. I was kind of hoping for an emergency landing or something.
Me: Man, that would've been nuts. And it would've been okay because since we're still waiting for our damn flight, we wouldn't have missed it.
[more random talk about what happened on the plane and how ludicrous it is to fly from Cincinnati to Dayton]
Girl: Wait, so where do you live?
Me: I live in West Chester, which is just about right in the middle between Cincinnati and Dayton.
Girl: Is that where the Touchdown Jesus is?
Me: [immediately thinks of Notre Dame] Uh, what? [thinks] OH!! You mean the Giant Jesus statue at the Solid Rock Church! Yeah, that's like 20 minutes from where I live.
Girl: Oh, cool. I live in Oakland and I'm here to see the Jesus statue.
Me: [pause] Wait, you flew here just to see the Giant Jesus?
Girl: Oh, no, I've got some friends who live in Dayton, but I'm mainly here to see the statue.
Me: Oh, well then. You, uh, have fun doing that then. The statue's pretty awesome. It'll probably change you're life, just not in that kind of way.

People fly to St. Louis just to see the Arch. Same with Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Old Faithful. The Grand Canyon. The Statue of Liberty. These are things in our country that are worth taking time out to go and see. I'm not certain I'm ready to include Big Butter Jesus on that list.