By Isle of Wight Observer
I watched a man die, and miraculously, later saw him stand and walk away.
Last Friday night, I boarded Virgin Atlantic flight VS118 from Miami. Most transatlantic flights are overnight, and, to combat jetlag, rest is essential. I was seated in the middle section, front row, aisle, immediately behind the galley.
After dinner, the cabin lights were dimmed, my eyes were firmly closed but I was vaguely aware of someone coughing. When people do that on planes, you always hope it’s not contagious. Suddenly, there was a loud, slightly garbled PA announcement, a coded message for the cabin crew. They came running. The coughing man had collapsed in the aisle right in front of me; he’d suffered a heart attack.
The flight attendants took turns to perform CPR, and, as I watched in shock, was struck by the brutal physical effort involved; ribs were broken. Five, 10, then 20 minutes passed, but despite the crew’s heroic efforts, there was no change in the man’s condition. In my professional opinion, he was dead.
I knew there were now two possible outcomes for all of us. If he was dead, we’d continue to London. If he wasn’t, we’d divert for help. I work for the coroner and I’ve occasionally boarded aircraft at Heathrow to remove people who sadly died in the air.
Long-haul aircraft usually have moving maps, so, as the crew battled on, I looked at mine and saw we were over the Atlantic. Moments later, we started turning back, towards Gander, Newfoundland. Our captain, Jerry Kinder, made a soothing PA announcement, informing us that we’d declared an emergency.
An hour later, we landed smoothly in the Canadian wilderness. I’ve used flight tracker websites before when a loved one was airborne. I’ve often wondered how I’d react if the flight vanished or declared an emergency – as ours just did. I guessed anyone monitoring our progress from the ground was now worried. Technology is great, but could you handle that sort of stress?
Gander is the isolated airport where, on 9-11, 7,000 people found themselves as all American airspace was abruptly shut. The local people fed ‘the plane people,’ providing food, clothing, blankets and accommodation for several days. As a thank you, the affected passengers later established a $1 million education fund to help local students.
On the runway at Gander, paramedics quickly boarded our plane and continued the resuscitation. The sick man was over 6’ 4” and heavily built, so I wondered how they’d move him. Rolling him onto a stretcher looked impossible, so I guessed they’d need some muscle from the fire department, and that’s exactly what they got.
A side door opened, and a catering truck was raised alongside us. They still couldn’t lift him, so stood him up and to my astonishment, he shuffled off through the open door. Having been certain he was dead an hour ago, I was absolutely flabbergasted.
Captain Jerry told us that if we managed to refuel quickly, the rest of us might still get to London that day, which was welcome news for me, since I was planning to watch ‘Wet Leg’ there on Saturday evening.
Flight crews have maximum duty hours, and ours were close to exceeding theirs. Four hours later, we were touching down uneventfully at Heathrow. Coincidentally, the entire crew had parked their cars where I did, so I got a detailed debrief from them on the shuttle bus. Naturally, I praised the terrific way they’d handled the incident. It was a first for all of them, except Captain Jerry, who told me that in over 20 years with Virgin, he’d declared an emergency just once before.
I did make the Wet Leg gig with just two minutes to spare — to hear them perform their brilliant new song, CPR!