Nurses Control Intense In-Flight Crisis

Emergencies happen anywhere, anytime, and sometimes medical professionals find themselves in situations where they are the only ones who can help. Is There a Doctor in the House? is a Medscape Medical News series telling these stories.

My husband Scott and I were flying back to Washington state with our two kids, who were about 1 and 4. We had been in Florida for a family vacation, and we were near the end of the flight, with both kids passed out on top of me.

Suddenly, there was some scuffling and a lot of movement from the flight attendants. The announcement came: “Are there any healthcare providers on board?” My husband and I are both nurses. We looked at each other, and we looked at our sleeping kids. Should we say anything?

One of the stewardesses walked by looking very flustered. My husband was in the aisle seat, so he leaned out and told her that we were nurses. Her eyes got all big, and she said, “Oh yeah, come on up.”

She was looking at both of us. I said, “I think he’s got it.” I assumed it wasn’t that big of a deal. Plus — kids sleeping on top of me.

Scott went up to the front of the plane. But a few minutes later, the stewardess came back and said, “You need to help.” I was holding my 1-year-old son, so I handed her my kid. She sat down with him, and I boogied up to the front of the plane.

I got to the first-class stewards’ area where the restrooms are and the cabinets with all the food and drinks. I could see an older man on the ground on his back. He was unconscious and bleeding profusely from his scalp.

When I saw the bleeding, my first reaction was we need to apply pressure. I asked for a towel. There were no towels. A blanket? Anything to help absorb the blood? Nope. They had nothing. I was given a pair of gloves that were much too big and a fistful of cocktail napkins.

It was such a small space there wasn’t any way to be next to the man. So, I kind of squatted over the top of him to reach behind his head. I got a stack of napkins on there and held pressure as hard as I could with the tips of my fingers on one hand.

I’m a postanesthesia care unit nurse, so my next thought was to check his pupils and make sure he had a good airway by doing a jaw thrust and a chin lift. I noticed there was blood in his mouth. His breathing was in short gusts. I was trying to do all that with my free hand without crushing him with my body.

Scott had made some ice packs, so I applied those as well, which helped to constrict the bleeding. Then he checked the plane’s medical kit to try to get an intravenous (IV) started. It wasn’t easy. The IV start kit was very different from what you would normally use. And at the same time, the plane had started to descend for landing, so we were on an angle. But he tried.

We asked about what had happened. The steward team said the man had fallen and hit his head on one of the stainless steel cabinets. He seemed to be in his 70s or 80s, a tall, solid guy.

His wife was sitting nearby — pretty calm and stoic given the circumstances. We asked her about his medical history, trying to get a feel for why he might be unconscious. He was still totally out. She told us he had diabetes. He was on a blood pressure medication and also a blood thinner.

The plane kept going down. I was in a really awkward position, squatting and holding myself up against the cabinets. I just kept talking to the man, trying to get him to wake up. “Can you hear me? Everything’s okay. You hit your head.”

Someone brought us an oxygen tank. I looked for the mask. And realized it wasn’t a mask. It was a plastic bag. I set it on the patient’s face, and it felt like I was suffocating him. So, I tried to do it blowby to just increase the oxygen in the air near his face.

At one point, his breathing was agonal for a few minutes, which really concerned me. My fear was that he was going to stop breathing. I rubbed his chest and kind of said, “Hey, let’s not do that!”

I would have felt a lot better about resuscitating him with an actual oxygen mask rather than a plastic bag.

The amount of blood definitely looked alarming. I couldn’t tell how much he was actively bleeding. But it was a lot. He wasn’t turning gray though, so that was a good sign.

Finally, he started coming to and opening his eyes. I introduced myself and asked him, “Do you know where you are? Do you know what’s going on?” Trying to see if he was oriented at all.

Eventually, he was able to talk to me, so I kept asking questions: “Are you guys on vacation? Where are you headed? Where are you staying?”

He told me they were going to visit his granddaughter, and he was able to talk about that. He didn’t try to get up, which I was glad about, because that would’ve been really challenging to navigate.

I could tell he was embarrassed about what had happened. I’ve helped a lot of older gentlemen after falling down, and their egos are often bruised. They don’t want to be in a position of needing help.

Finally, the plane landed. There was blood absolutely everywhere. The ice packs had melted, and the water had mixed with the pool of blood. It was such a mess.

The pilots had called the airport ahead to let them know we needed medical services. So, the first responding team came on right away. They stabilized the man with a board, put the neck brace on him, and did all the stuff you do for a patient after a fall.

I gave them a report — that’s just my style. But it didn’t seem like they needed a lot of information at that point.

I was finally able to talk to the man’s wife who was clearly terrified. I gave her a hug and told her he would be alright. She thanked us.

The emergency team didn’t seem to have anything to help staunch the bleeding either because the rolling gurney left puddles of blood all down the gangway, causing a significant biohazard problem.

They let one person leave who had a connecting flight, but everyone else had to get off from the rear of the plane and walk across the tarmac.

When we finally got back to our seats, the stewardess was still sitting with our kids. They were both totally chill, watching some show, apparently very well behaved. Our daughter asked us what was going on, and I said, “Oh, somebody got hurt at the front of the plane.” She’s so used to hearing that we work with sick people that it didn’t faze her at all.

As we left, we got a lot of thank-yous from people who had been sitting up front and saw what happened.

When we got home, there was still blood on my shoes. I remember looking at them and thinking: Disinfect or throw away? I disinfected them. They were still a good pair of shoes.

A few days later, we got an email from the airline with a voucher, expressing their gratitude for our help. That was nice and unexpected.

I responded with a suggestion: How about having some protocols for medical events on airplanes? Pilots go through checklists for almost everything they do. Why wouldn’t they have something like that for medical responses?

I also asked how the man and his wife were doing. But they couldn’t disclose that information.

It was certainly strange being out of my element, helping a patient in that tiny little space; I’m used to working in a recovery room where you have literally everything you need within arm’s reach — the Ambu bag, suction, and bandages. And with airway management, there’s usually more than one person in the room to assist. If there’s a problem, a whole bunch of people show up around the bed so fast.

I’m definitely thinking about field medicine a lot more. Wondering what I would do in certain situations. While debriefing with my mom (an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner), she pointed out that we should have asked passengers for sanitary pads or diapers to stabilize the bleeding instead of the cocktail napkins. Brilliant idea! I didn’t think of it in the moment. But I’m keeping that little tip tucked in my back pocket for any future bleeding-in-the-wild scenarios.

Audra Podruzny, MSN, RN, CPAN, lives in Washington state and is currently attending the Washington State University Doctor of Nursing Practice Family Nurse Practitioner program.

Are you a medical professional with a dramatic story outside the clinic? Medscape Medical News would love to consider your story for Is There a Doctor in the House? Please email your contact information and a short summary to access@webmd.net.

Read more in the series:

“Just Be Prepared”: MD Finds Overdose Victim in an Alley

Vacationing Doctors Fight to Revive Drowned Child

“No Pulse”: An MDs First Night Off in 2 Weeks Turns Grave

Read the entire series here.