On flight to Europe... "we need a nurse"!

Silverdragon102, BSN · Jan 4, 2008

Well I have flown many times Internationally and nothing in my passport indicates what my job is and I have never had a call 'is there a nurse/doctor on board' I would just sit back and enjoy your flight

Music in My Heart · Jan 4, 2008

In over 500,000 air miles traveled, only twice have I heard "Is there a doctor on board" on international flights; I've never heard them ask for a nurse or other provider. I never knew why and the flights were not diverted.

Be aware that most or all intercontinental flights (and domestics, for that matter) have AEDs on them and oxygen bottles, as well.

If you're involved, just apply your basic first responder skills though at least some of the flight attendants are already trained to that level.

elizabells, BSN, RN · Jan 4, 2008

A woman I work with commutes in for four-day stretches from GA to NY - sometimes she flies in her scrubs if she won't have time to change. She told me that once some guy went into anaphylactic shock and she had to start an IV and give epi... I'm assuming they had them in a kit on the plane, as I don't think she carries angiocaths and code meds in her carryon...

James Huffman · Jan 4, 2008

As earlier posters said, nothing on your passport gives an occupation.

Having said that, I was on a flight last April from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. Maybe 14 hours in the air. About 4 hours into the flight, a call interrupts the movie saying, "If there's a medical professional on board, would you please identify yourself?" I did. A boy (maybe 3) had vomited some (old) blood. The flight attendants had saved the vomitus in a zip lock bag. The boy was fine, maybe a bit sweaty, but asleep by the time they got me to him. Vitals and everything else were OK. So I go back to my seat.

Maybe another 4 hours later (one loses track on such flights) an FA is frantically shaking my shoulder, "Missuh Huffman! Missuh Huffman! [she was Chinese ... the Rs are a problem] A woman is having chest pains!" So I bolt out of my seat, expecting to find an elderly woman in full arrest. Instead, I encounter a pretty healthy looking woman, maybe 25. Vitals fine, no perspiration, none of the classic symptoms. So I do a history, and it turns out she's had a URI for month. And as I listened to her breath sounds, I realized her chest pains were happening whenever she breathed deep. I took the chief FA aside, and said that I thought she was OK. The woman's boyfriend kept watching with a kind of smile, and I realized that he'd probably seen this kind of behavior before. She was going on to Manila, where her sister-in-law was a doc, and would take care of her, she said.

All told, it was kind of interesting. But this sort of thing has never happened before. And I fly a fair amount. Likely the worst thing that will happen is that you'll get a bad movie.

BTW ... here's a brush-up from your history of nursing course ... did you know that the first flight attendants had to be nurses? Probably for eventualities such as this...

KJRN79 · Jan 4, 2008

I was on my first flight home from Disney with my then 6 year old son when they came over the speaker saying "any medical personnel". YIKES!!!! ANY???? LOL. I was an OB nurse so I was hoping someone was having a baby. But, no....there happened to be an anesthesiologist there, who got to the patient before I did...a 30-something year old woman who kept fainting....he was asking questions of her and her husband, she kept passing out, so I finally said to the flight attendant, lay her down, get her some oxygen and can we land the plane. It was very, very cool to get landed at Kennedy Airport in NYC first before every other plane and get to the gate immediately. Firemen/EMTs met the plane with an ambulance and away she went (she looked fine when she left, but I never knew what the real problem was). I think we got home about an hour earlier than we expected. This was more than 10 years ago, so I hope there is some sort of medical equipment available now, there was none for us that day.

Christie RN2006 · Jan 4, 2008

I have done my share of traveling over the years and I have only ever heard the call go out twice that I can remember. Both times were before I was a nurse, but I was with my family and my dad is a paramedic, so he went. On the other hand I have had things happen at church, in a cafeteria, etc. before. Just remember to do your ABCs and get help if something happens. I always do what I can until help arrives, then I step back and let them take over.

mianders, RN · Jan 4, 2008

I have never had a medical emergency on an airline, but I have been on 3 cruises and on each one there was an emergency. The first one was a lady that collapsed in the middle of the dance floor. We did cpr while we waited for the ships medical crew to show up. She did not survive. The other 2 times was while we were on an excursion off the ship. Both of these were elderly gentlemen who collapsed. They both were ok. You can have an emergency at any time where you might be called on to use your nursing skills. Relax and enjoy your trip.

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Jan 4, 2008

I have a question about this. If you are on a flight and a medical emergency occurs, are there some sort of standing orders allowing a nurse to intervene and give meds in the emergency kit? For example, if a passenger is going into anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction, could the nurse administer an Epi pen in the flight kit (or other appropriate med)? This seems common sense, but I'm wondering about getting in trouble by going out of scope in an emergency.

Christie RN2006 · Jan 4, 2008

I have heard that all airlines have a doctor that will talk to the medical personel on the phone and tell them what to do, etc. Luckily I haven't had to find that out for myself! The times when things happened outside of the hospital I just used my BLS skills and the one time it happened on hospital grounds I was able to use my ACLS skills because it was within the hospital building.

PMHNP10 · Jan 4, 2008

I'm speaking from a TX law POV...you could be wearing your scrubs with badge stating your name, place of occupation, years experience, SSN, etc. and if you are a CVICU nurse and the person drops from what appears to be a MI you can walk right by as long as you don't do anything to impede his care. If you do help, you are held to the standard of gross negligence (vs. negligence). Lemme give you a funny little analogy.

negligence--you are driving a car in the middle lane on a major highway during rush hour...you see your exit coming, slow down to 10 mph and cut over to get to the exit

gross nedligence--same scenario except you passed your exit so you decide to hit the brakes. throw it in reverse, back up to the exit, and cut over

cheshirecat · Jan 4, 2008

I was on a Transatlantic flight from the UK to USA when a man collapsed whilst going to the loo.

Call came out for a medical personnel, and my husband kindly announced I was a nurse. Turned out the passenger had a long history of mental illness (he had been behaving bizarrely thoughout the journey). He was covered in lice, had not been taking his meds (voices in his head told him to stop taking them), had no luggage, thousands of pounds tied up in an elastic band in his pocket and was wearing 3 sets of clothes!!!

Myself and an off duty policeman got him up and sat him in a seat. I had to sit next to him until we had landed and he was taken off the plane. I think he would probably have been refused admission to the USA. The flight attendants told me he had been searched 3 times by security before being allowed to board.

After scrubbing myself in the loo (lucky I did not catch the lice) I was given free champers all the way to Florida so if they had had another emergency I would have been no help.

Enjoy your holiday. If an emergency happens, it happens.