Celebrating Nurses Week at 40,000 feet
Our recent journey across the Atlantic also happened to coincide with Nurses Week. Of course, we had to celebrate at 40,000 feet, transatlantic style.
In the middle of the night we get every healthcare worker’s nightmare, that overhead call for doctors or nurses. Just as I’ve managed to fall asleep with my seat in the upright position I hear the call. “Am I dreaming?”, I ask myself as I come to. The call for help goes out again. Realizing the call for help is just on the other side of the galley, about 8 feet from us, I jostle Jeremy awake.
Calm in the chaos
A passenger has passed out coming out of the bathroom. I arrive to the passenger as another is announcing herself as a doctor and has taken over the scene. Another passenger, a retirement age nurse, is standing there and listing things around them, none of which are medical supplies.
Jeremy and I announce ourselves as ER nurses and, as Emergency medical providers are trained to do, attempt to asses the situation and identify roles and responsibilities. We are brushed off by the doctor, who seems determined to do this alone. Jeremy identifies the “crash cart” bag that the flight attendant is carrying, and begins to go through its contents. He understands his role is to manage the supplies and have things ready if needed.
Everyone wants to be a hero
I watch the physician, who clearly doesn’t work in a patient care setting, struggle with unwrapping an automatic cuff for what felt like an eternity. The unwell passenger begins to come to, and the doctor continues to struggle with the automatic cuff, now while trying to talk with the patient. I hop in with the manual cuff and one of those yellow isolation stethoscopes.
The doctor tries to tell me that the automatic will be more accurate (wrong!) & that I won’t be able to hear anything over the loud airplane noises (also wrong!). I lay down in the galley and position myself creatively & had absolutely no issue obtaining that blood pressure. I was done & reporting the blood pressure, and the doctor was just finishing setting up the automatic cuff. Of course, the automatic and manual blood pressure were almost the same. (Go ER nurse!)
Crisis averted, back to sleep
The ill passenger appeared to be improving and appeared stable. Flight crew brought her juice & she sat there a bit. I let the flight crew know that I would be available if they needed me, now that the passenger was stable.
After about 15 minutes, the unwell passenger was feeling much better, and returned to her nearby seat. The determined doctor returned to her first class seat. We returned to our economy seats, and settled in for the rest of our transatlantic journey to Amsterdam.
I have to wonder if the unwell passenger visited our dear friends at the Schiphol Airport Medical Clinic.
What’s in an Airplane emergency medical kit anyway?
Before returning to our slumbering dreams of travel adventures, Jeremy & I decided to familiarize ourselves with the on board crash cart bag, as we fly so frequently, and this is the second time we’ve responded to a medical emergency mid-flight.
For the other healthcare nerds out there dying to know, we made note of what was inside. The “crash cart” aka Emergency Medical Kit. This bag included:
- IV start supplies
- blunt needle/syringe kit for medication administration
- 500 mL normal saline bag
- IV meds that included
- hypoglycemia kit including IV dextrose,
- allergy kit including oral and IV Benadryl,
- anaphylaxis kit with epi, and a
- cardiac emergency kit including
- 2 atropine syringes &
- 2 syringes of epi.
- The emergency kit also contained miscellaneous medications like
- acetaminophen, aspirin, nitroglycerin tabs, zofran ODT tabs for nausea, narcan, and an inhaler.
- an airway kit, including OPAs, & a bag valve mask with adapters.
The kit was color coded and neatly organized and came with the BP cuff & stethoscope, as well as a sharps container. Included also were clear instructions on the use of said medical supplies.
The strangest find? A urinary catheter.
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