Something happened on my journey back
to KSA…
In the many years
that I have been traveling this route; I was never 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 when 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 obviously in respiratory distress. The female attendant cleared the
way for me. I bent forward and asked 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 suffices to have a general idea of
what is wrong. Experienced physicians often times need not examine patients but
protocol demand that we do. She had I was certain of having an acute bout of
bronchial asthma without even putting the stethoscope over her chest.
“Hmm,” I
thought, “what a real bad 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
need 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 lying
under the seat. I thought that someone will most probably demand for 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 suit case were exactly what the patient needs.
The nurse
handed me a stethoscope. The patient almost had a complete obstruction we refer
to in medical parlance as ‘silent lung.’ She could die without proper treatment
and 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 meds
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 up. 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 magic; 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
