Chance of Life or Death at 30,000 Feet

Not everyone might know, (or care) but I snuck out of town for a long weekend in Las Vegas this week. My wife and I attended the Bar Mitzvah of my cousin’s eldest son.

We were expecting the typical, routine Southwest Airlines flight. What came to past was anything but a normal morning jaunt west.

At an elevation of 30,000 feet, somewhere over Colorado or New Mexico aboard Flight 2435 the scheduled flight quickly turned into a potentially life and death situation.

My wife and I had the aisle and middle seat about two-thirds of the way back in a fully filled flight. We were setting next to a women, about 35 years old who was traveling with her two pre-teen or teen aged daughters. She had the window seat.

What happened next is something likely I will never forget. She tapped me gently and wispered:  “I just want you to know I think I am going to pass out.” Those were words I certainly didn’t expect to hear as we prepared for the day. As it turned out she was nearly going into shock from low blood pressure. If she passed out, she might have died.

That’s the moment when any individual just reacts. There’s no time to think what comes next. My first and only reaction was to hit the cabin call button.

I’d say it took the flight attendant less than five seconds to get to our seats. She asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

I responded by telling her this lady was passing out and we were having a true medical emergency.

We quickly bailed out of our seats, and we were instructed to sit in the flight attendant’s jump seats all the way in the back of the plane. Remember, all the seats were taken.

It was surreal just how the the flight crew plunged into action. Crew members called for a doctor, and sure enough, one was aboard, stethoscope in hand.

While the doctor and flight attendant were reviving the mom with oxygen and other treatments, another attendant was on head phones talking to a triage unit at some medical center on the ground.

The training was so impeccable. The crew handled the emergency in such a magnificent calm, collected, organized manner. It was almost as if they had trained for this exact situation for years.

I was very proud of the personnel from Southwest Airlines. I have always known they are trained for so much more than serving drinks and snacks and collecting waste products. They are a passengers only lifeline in life and death situations exactly as this one.

Once the woman came to, we gladly exchanged our seats so the daughters could be with their mom the rest the way. She looked pretty good when we landed in Phoenix (our intermediate stop). The flight crew thanked us for being helpful and cooperative. They handed me a couple of complimentary drink tickets.

I almost felt like cashing one in right there on the spot.

There is just such a helpless feeling when something medically goes wrong and your airplane is at 30,000 feet, and a long way from making an emergency landing.

That didn’t stop the highly-experienced Southwest crew from doing exactly what they were trained to do to and that was to save this woman’s life.