March 23, 2008
Medical emergencies on commercial airlines
About two weeks ago my flight to Tampa was uneventful - until about the time we started our approach for landing. A flurry of activity among the flight attendants was quickly followed by an announcement from one of them that someone on board was having a heart attack. Then, several minutes later, one of the flight attendants rushed quickly up the aisle, announcing out loud as she passed my row - "Now we've got another one!" Two heart attacks in perhaps two minutes on one plane?
I let privacy concerns over-rule curiosity and didn't look back to verify what was going on. Nor did I follow up with the airlines about that incident.
That same week, the BMJ cover was headlined "In-Flight Emergencies." A physician's article, "A wing and a prayer: the tale of an in-flight emergency," was one feature. In it, he argues that emergency protocols should be upgraded on all airlines. In his experience of trying to help a man with chest pain on a flight to Africa, he said the onboard medical equipment was limited and the crew mishandled the evacuation of the patient from the plane after landing.
Another feature in that week's BMJ analyzed how common in-flight medical emergencies are and what doctors are expected to do in such circumstances.
Then, about 11 days ago, USA Today published a long and thoughtful piece "on the growing number of medical emergencies on commercial jets, a trend that largely has escaped public notice because airlines aren't required to report such incidents."
For one who never saw the movie, "Snakes On A Plane," with no intention of ever doing so, real life is dramatic enough.
Interesting. I recently (last night actually) learned, through watching a local St. Louis news story on Youtube, about a high school friend who was a registered nurse and saved the life of a baby boy on a plane back from Cambodia. The child would have died had the nurse not been on the flight to perform the risky shot into his bone marrow that was required.
maybe it's too much to ask that flight attendants be medically trained, but hopefully there are the appropriate medical tools and guides to aide in the sometimes more dangerous events. Seatbelts don't do much on airplanes.
Posted by: Jesse Maple at March 25, 2008 11:51 PM