SICK 36,000 FEET IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IN SPACE

Something happened on my journey back to KSA…

In the many years that I have been traveling this route, I have never been on a flight where someone needed medical attention. When the call was first made: “Attention, is there any doctor or nurse on board…” I didn’t give it much thought. “Let others respond” was in the back of my mind, but after 5 minutes, a more frantic call repeatedly interrupted the movie I was watching; I had to get on my feet with more relaxed urgency. The flight crews were crowding over a seat not far in front of my own.

“How can I help? I am a doctor.”

Except for the male attendants, all the female crews were Filipinos. There was one passenger who was obviously in respiratory distress. The female attendant cleared the way for me. I bent forward and asked a few quick questions to the patient, a Filipino female passenger who can barely talk. After more than 30 years in the business of making people well, few questions usually suffice to have a general idea of what is wrong. Experienced physicians often do not need to examine patients, but protocol demands that we do. I was certain of having an acute bout of bronchial asthma without even putting the stethoscope over her chest.

“Hmm,” I thought, “what an awful place to have an attack of asthma, 36,000 feet in the middle of nowhere in space.” I know people in the same condition who died inside a taxi on the way to the hospital while caught in the traffic of Metro Manila. It was no surprise that the flight crews were frantic. The captain must have already considered landing the plane at the nearest airport. After almost 3 hours into our 9 hours and 50 minutes flight from Manila to Riyadh, I surmised that we were somewhere in the airspace of India.

“Where is your medical kit?” I asked the male attendant. “Show it to me.”

“The captain needs your ID,” he replied. I almost laughed because when I decided to answer the call, I had to fish out my wallet from the bottom of my laptop bag, which was lying under the seat. I thought that someone would most probably demand an ID.

“What can I do?” I heard a female voice cowering over me while I bent over the suitcase full of medicines. “I am a nurse.”

“Lucky me,” I virtually smiled, not only that, now I have someone to administer the meds; among the medicines in the big suitcase were precisely what the patient needs.

The nurse handed me a stethoscope. The patient almost had a complete obstruction, which we refer to in medical parlance as ‘silent lung.’ She could die without proper treatment urgently. I pulled out from the pack of medicines an ‘epinephrine ampoule.’ I told the nurse to prepare 0.3 cc of it.  Lucky, there was also a ‘ventolin inhaler’ in the kit.

The nurse was hesitant when I told her to give the patient 0.3 cc of the epinephrine, sub-cu, but she plunged it into the patient’s arm when I repeated the command. It used to be the standard meds we give to patients in the emergency room with acute attacks of asthma, but with the advent of more modern treatments, I have not used it in the last 25 years or so. Epinephrine is, however, a standard medication that can be found in every Emergency room and emergency medical kits for other uses or as the doctor sees fit :-)

I also told the nurse to give the patient 2 puffs of the inhaler.

“She will be alright in 15 minutes,” I said to the worried flight crews and walked back to my seat.

After 20 minutes, one of the flight attendants handed me a form to fill out. The patient was better just as I told the crew she would be. The chief of the crew came later to return my ID and to thank me personally.

I just performed one of my medical miracles; the same that made people in this town call me “Barraka,” the miracle man. Some in this town call me the “emir” of doctors :-)

SAUDIA AIRLINE SHOULD GIVE ME A PLAQUE OF APPRECIATION…LOL

NLK