OT: Red Eye's and other strangeness from last night.

[scirocco16vr32 at gmail.com (Chris Bennett)]

Let me say first that THANK GOD in HEAVEN or whatever YOU choose to
pray to... that I wasn't the one jacked up last night or I would be
COMPLETELY screwed.

I get on the red-eye to Philly last night in Vegas.  11pm pac time.
As soon as we get up in the air I change my watch in anticipation of
landing at 6am.  Approximately 3am Eastern Time the stewardess turns
on all the lights and announces that there is a medical emergency.
Was there a doctor or an EMT on the plane?  No answer... crickets...
A couple minutes goes by and it's starting to sound a little more
desperate again the call for an EMT or doctor or now ANYONE with ANY
sort of medical training...

I am thinking holy crap someone's got a bum ticker.  I wasn't sure
what I could do but I was trained as ALL in the Navy are, to be a
Naval Firefighter, and I had specialized training as a medical/damage
control first responder.  Keep in mind in a military mindset/time of
war priorities are a little different than in the civvie world--you
let people die to save the ship if you had to... so my training was
crude at best and at least a couple years out of practice now.  I got
up to see what I could do to help.  I walk back there and there's this
guy playing with the blood pressure cuff on this poor lady.  She was
maybe 30, about 16 weeks pregnant and had passed out.  He asked me if
I was an EMT and I couldn't help but laugh.  No but I play one on
tv...  So the stewardess's are completely useless, he's volunteer fire
fighter with basic first aid, but he couldn't find her pulse.  I
suggested the carotid artery and he asked me where it was!  (and I
caught him using his thumb)

I always try to generate some sort of conversation with the patient to
distract them.  You chat them up a little while observing a few
things.  Respiration, color/claminess of the skin, pupils and so on.
I crack jokes... Ma'am I've got some bad news for you, you have no
pulse so therefore you must be dead.  She thought that was pretty
funny.  I took her pulse and it worried me.  90+bpm and weak.  The
stethescope was crap so I couldn't get a decent blood pressure.  They
got the oxygen out and made her lay down--I basically treated for
shock while I was gathering info.  Stewardess comes up and wants to
know on behalf of the captain how serious it was--did we need to land?
 I made it very clear that I was in NO WAY qualified to answer THAT
question but I suggested getting an FAA doc on the radio and giving
the stats.  She was pregnant, no bleeding, no history of diabetes, no
gestational diabetes with her first kid, I asked her if she had a good
meal recently and she had.  No history of anemia and no history of low
blood pressure.  She asked for some ginger ale and we gave it to her
and her pulse slowly came down to about 60 (I monitored every 5
minutes) and was much stronger.  I was thinking she had low blood
pressure and stood up too quickly in the bathroom.  The doc on the
ground made the call that there was no need to make an emergency
landing, thanked me and that was about it.

What bothered me was that I was the most medically qualified person on
the plane... considering what I know... very little--that is really
damn scary.  If she had a broken bone or was bleeding horrendously I
could deal with that.  I could even do CPR... but that's about it.
Jesus Christ I think I was more scared than she was.  I told her when
taking her pulse that I usually didn't hold hands on the first date, I
kept her laughing so she wouldn't see how scared shitless I was.

Additionally--WHAT THE HELL KIND OF TRAINING DO THESE FLIGHT
ATTENDANTS GET?  They give those people AED's!!!  I mean if it was me
in that situation I would have nightmare scenarios of one of them
yelling "CLEAR!"

They seemed almost in a state of panic.

EMT's were waiting when I got there I turned over my observations and
they wisked her away in an ambulance.

Thank God it worked out.  I got no sleep though.

Chris