A voyage, point A to point B, no matter how long or short it is, is like a miniature life, people on the flight eat and sleep, joy and sorrow, everything is just ordinary. However, some people never thought that their lives but finally 30,000 feet in the air. For example, on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Dusseldorf, Germany, in January this year, a 73-year-old man suddenly suffered from labored breathing and an unstable pulse, then stopped breathing, lost consciousness, and finally died suddenly. Although trained flight attendants performed CPR on him and fellow passengers with medical qualifications provided support and assistance, they were unable to stop the old man from going west. The plane was eventually diverted to Vienna, where the elderly man was taken over by the Vienna airport's medical assistance team, leaving all passengers stranded in Vienna.
The occurrence of such similar in-flight medical emergencies undoubtedly poses a great challenge and test for crew members. Typically, when a passenger is unconscious, stops breathing and has a pulse, but has not yet been diagnosed with sudden death, the crew will immediately move him or her to the more spacious first class cabin or quieter in-flight galley, where one of the crew members who is the most experienced and confident in first aid will perform first aid CPR and provide initial treatment to the passenger. If you need to use medical equipment, the airline has a primary first aid kit in the cabin of the aircraft, including some commonly used drugs and supplies, while in the cockpit there is a very professional emergency medical special box, which contains a variety of injection tools, specialized medicines, simple surgical tools and so on.
At present, in all airline flight attendants' entry training, the importance of in-flight first aid training is second only to emergency evacuation training, so flight attendants have to spend a lot of time learning first aid as well as practical operation. For example, Etihad Airways in the United Arab Emirates in the training of new passengers, a week of time is specially arranged to train flight attendants in first aid knowledge, first aid knowledge covers a very wide range of small passenger burns, hand sprains, body allergies, nosebleed blood flow, large passenger bleeding shock, stroke spasms, heart attack recurrence, and so on, and even the flight attendants have to learn how to deliver babies on the flight. In addition, every year the flight attendants have to go back to the training school for first aid knowledge retraining, simulated scenario drills, and the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillator, is the top priority, no matter how good the flight attendants are in the retraining of other first aid operations, as long as the scenario of cardiopulmonary resuscitation drills do not get one hundred percent, the retraining failed. Therefore, once on the flight, the emergency medical incident, remove nervousness and fear and other psychological factors, in the actual operation of CPR flight attendants are completely at ease.
At the same time, another flight attendant will observe and record the passenger's symptoms and reactions, and keep the captain updated on the situation, so that he or she can decide whether or not to immediately divert to the nearest airport for medical assistance. In addition, most airlines have a partnership with MEDAIRE, so flight attendants will utilize in-flight telephones to contact MEDAIRE for telemedicine and equipment service solutions, a subsidiary of International SOS, which provides airlines with life-saving, integrated telemedicine skills and service solutions through direct dialing 24 hours a day, every day, and has partnered with more than 100 airlines worldwide. MEDAIRE is a subsidiary of SOS International. In layman's terms, when a medical emergency occurs on board, the flight attendant describes in detail to MEDAIRE a series of symptoms and reactions of the passenger, and MEDAIRE's professional doctors will guide the flight attendant to implement the appropriate measures to help and medication accordingly. For example, if a passenger on a flight suddenly develops a stiff face, slurred speech, abnormal breathing, and limp limbs, etc., and the flight attendant initially determines that the passenger has suffered a stroke, the flight attendant will utilize his or her knowledge to treat the passenger, such as supporting the passenger's body with blankets and pillows, and using oxygen cylinders to deliver oxygen, and then contact MEDAIRE immediately to respond to the passenger's specific symptoms, and then provide further treatment to the passenger in accordance with MEDAIRE's instructions. further treatment according to MEDAIRE's instructions.
Usually, crew members will also immediately seek qualified medical personnel through the onboard radio, after confirming the medical qualifications of the medical personnel, the medical personnel will assist the flight attendants to carry out first aid, but the medical personnel can not be based on their own experience in the medical treatment of the passenger to carry out the medication and treatment, the flight attendants should be the implementation of the duties of the passenger rescue candidates, all of its rescue behavior is only subject to the direction of the MEDAIRE. The flight attendants are the ones who should be responsible for rescuing passengers, and they are only under the direction of MEDAIRE. The reason for this is obvious: the medical incident occurred at an altitude of more than 30,000 feet, the situation is more complicated than on the ground, only MEDAIRE is a professional organization to deal with on-board medical incidents, and it is more convincing to look for a treatment plan from MEDAIRE as it is an international aviation procedure and international practice. In addition, if the passenger died suddenly or had other accidents, and his relatives blamed the airline later, the airline had the recording of the phone call to MEDAIRE to seek help, which was justifiable and an effective way for the airline to protect itself.
So what if a passenger dies suddenly if first aid is ineffective? Internationally, most airlines have confirmed the sudden death of a passenger, will continue to do CPR for the passenger, will last about 30 minutes, on the one hand, is to do the last hold on life and retain, on the other hand, is also to avoid the relatives of the deceased to the airline initiated to the deceased care of the blame of poor, not to do their best. Afterwards, the flight attendants will keep all the first aid supplies intact, including the medicines used in first aid, oxygen cylinders, defibrillators used in CPR, etc., to serve as evidence for the airline to prove to the outside world that it has done its best to save the passenger. The deceased's body will be covered with a blanket to preserve his/her privacy and dignity, and the flight attendant who has been performing CPR will stay by his/her side until the plane lands and the airport medical team takes over. If the family of the deceased is also on the same flight, the cabin crew will do their best to take care of the family and calm them down by bringing them to the side of the deceased.
In most cases, if a passenger dies after receiving first aid in his or her own seat, the airline will not move the passenger to first class or another hidden space, as rumors have circulated online, because once the passenger is moved, the airline's first aid facilities and supplies will be moved or even destroyed, which would destroy the airline's proof that it performed its first aid duties. If the family of the deceased insists that the death of their relative was caused by the airline's poor care and failure to provide first aid, and the airline lacks the relevant evidence, it will easily lose the case and pay a huge amount of compensation. Therefore, from the perspective of protecting themselves, airlines will not move dead passengers easily. Generally speaking, airlines move passengers to the first class cabin or galley in order to seek privacy and quietness in the space when they have a sudden illness and are preparing to administer medical treatment to them, rather than moving them after they have died suddenly. After the death of a passenger on a flight, the flight attendants will also be unanimous in keeping it a secret from the passenger in order to avoid causing a commotion and not to affect the mood and emotions of other passengers on the flight.
Since the operating costs of transferring to and from other airports are too high, and the deaths have already occurred and there is nothing that can be done about it, as well as in order to avoid delaying the journeys of other passengers, after the passengers have been determined to be dead, the airlines will generally continue to fly straight to their destinations, and then be taken over by the local airport's medical assistance teams. After landing on the ground, the crew chief will make an in-flight announcement asking all passengers not to leave their seats and to wait patiently for the medical assistance team to move the sudden death passenger out safely before the passenger can leave the plane.
The death of a passenger on a flight can have an impact on the deceased, his family, other passengers, and the flight crew. The family of the deceased suffers from the loss of a loved one, the airline loses a great deal of money, and the flight crew is psychologically affected. For example, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, a certain tycoon airline in the United Arab Emirates had to arrange hotel accommodations in Vienna for all passengers and arrange flights from Vienna to Dusseldorf for passengers, which can be said to be a heavy loss, and had to give the crew on duty a vacation and provide psychological diagnosis and treatment in order to calm the mood of the crew. In order to avoid all this, passengers are advised to check whether they are physically fit to fly before traveling, and if they are not, they should not be forced to fly, such as patients with cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory disease and so on. And if you take the flight of other passengers in a medical emergency or sudden death, please remain calm, do not create panic, and do not provide unnecessary help, affecting the normal implementation of first aid by the flight attendants.