Nice story as we head into the holidays.
"A midflight medical emergency brings out the best in the crew and passengers."
The flight started unremarkably enough, if you forget that traveling vast distances at great speeds inside a metal tube miles in the air once seemed an impossible notion.
Southwest Airlines Flight 1749, New York LaGuardia to Chicago Midway International, departure right on time. Quiet flight, smooth air, and then something happened.
There was a stir near the front of the cabin. You can tell when something is amiss. A flight attendant hurried to a row on the left side.
The woman seated by the window had lost consciousness. I was two rows behind, on the aisle, and could see all of this and hear most of it.
The flight attendant—I would learn later that her name is Nissa Sebok, and that she has worked for Southwest for 24 years—was the same one who had greeted passengers cheerily as we boarded. Now her face was serious. She was calm, professional, fully focused. She knelt, speaking to the woman as she regained consciousness. She then hit the call button above the seats.
In response, one of her colleagues hastened to her side. He made an announcement on the public-address system: “Will any medical professionals on board please come to the front of the plane?” A crew member retrieved the plane’s emergency medical kit.
Within seconds, a fellow passenger, a physician, was on his knees, taking the woman’s pulse and going through a checklist of medical queries. She was able to answer.
Another man quickly joined him. “I’m an EMT,” he said to Ms. Sebok. Seeming satisfied that the physician had things under control, he said: “I’ll be back at my seat if you need anything.”
Thirty-eight thousand feet in the air a stranger was in trouble, and these people, without an instant’s hesitation, were stepping up to help. In this allegedly fractious world of ours, none of them knew or cared about the others’ political beliefs. The woman who fell ill, the flight attendants, the physician, the EMT were of different ethnicities, they had never met—that mattered not at all. We live in litigious times, but it seemingly didn’t occur for a moment to the two medical men that it might have been easier not to get involved. Someone needed them.
The woman by the window stabilized, and the physician spoke quietly to Ms. Sebok before returning to his seat. As the flight continued, Ms. Sebok periodically checked on and comforted the woman.
When things go wrong in this world, it makes the front pages. When things go right—when people come through for each other—it’s not considered news. Flight 1749 landed in Chicago and we all disembarked, into an America that we are constantly told is angry and full of distrust.
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