Techwing
 |
In Hollywood movies, the crew always drops everything and races for the nearest airport with an emergency landing, and the patient is saved just in the nick of time. In the real world, it doesn't normally work that way.
The fundamental problem is that any passenger medical emergency serious enough to warrant consideration of diverting to a nearby airport is probably also so serious that treatment must be initiated immediately—and no matter what an airliner does, it cannot simply land immediately. If an airliner decides to divert immediately, it may still be an hour or more before the patient receives medical attention, and by then it may be too late.
For example, suppose a passenger has a heart attack (it happens often enough). Heart attack victims need immediate treatment. Waiting for a landing, plus possible transport to medical facilities that can treat the condition, takes too long. The patient must be treated on board. Because heart problems are a fairly frequent and urgent medical emergency, airliners today often carry portable, automatic defibrillators on board to help restore heart rhythm right on the spot, without waiting for a landing. When this equipment is available, it can save lives, with or without a diversion. When this equipment is not available, patients often die … with or without a diversion.
In many cases, there's no place to go. Over the ocean, there's no place to land, and the nearest airport may be hours away. Over land, there may be airports, but they are unlikely to have the kind of medical facilities needed for many medical emergencies. And, as I've already said, it takes a long time to land, even in an emergency.
Diving the plane or making other aerobatic, risky maneuvers to land more quickly is also excluded, because the safety of the flight as a whole comes before safety of any one passenger. It isn't really even an emergency, in aviation terms, because the flight itself is not in danger—it's more like an expedited landing to an alternate airport. No matter how you look at it, though, it takes time.
A more realistic plan is this: If the situation is life-threatening, find a doctor if possible (or get one on the radio), and do what you can immediately, on board the airplane. If the nature of the emergency is such that further urgent treatment is required, consider a diversion as soon as practical (but this can be a difficult call, especially for people who are not medical professionals). If the situation can be stabilized with no immediate threat to the patient's life, continue with the flight.
One must also accept that there are many potential emergencies for which nothing can be done. PEs, strokes, and other crises happen so quickly that the patient will be dead long before the captain can even decide to divert. And some crises become less urgent if the patient survives the first few minutes.
Overall, airplanes have the same problems as trains, ships, buses, etc.: they are not hospitals, and they are far from hospitals, and there are just a lot of things that cannot be adequately treated. If a passenger develops a medical emergency, it's a roll of the dice. If a passenger has a massive stroke over the middle of the Atlantic, you may as well just continue to your destination and hope that he lives long enough to get medical treatment on the ground (but in 50% of cases, he'll be dead by then).
Real-world situations of this kind are much more ambiguous, variable, and uncertain than they are in movies or novels. There are rarely any single, ideal solutions, and even if there are, it's very hard to decide on the ideal course of action quickly enough to make a difference, in many cases.
There's one lesson that comes out of all of this: If you have a medical condition that can abruptly develop into a medical emergency, make sure you bring with you whatever you can to deal with the emergency. If you're allergic to something, bring an EpiPen. If you're an insulin-dependent diabetic, bring insulin and some sweets. If you're prone to angina, bring your nitroglycerin. Don't assume that the flight will have what you need, and don't assume that the airplane will race to the ground in thirty seconds to save the day. |
gromit801
|
Not only can they, but they are required to by law if it's an emergency. Airsickness for example, does NOT count as an emergency.
A passenger having chest pains, shortness of breath, dizziness, etc can be indicators of a heart attack or stroke. Flight crews are not doctors, so they will play it safe and divert to the nearest airport that can take their aircraft safely.
One life, is more important than a plane load of missed connections, and the law will back them up. |
News
Travel Topics
Travel Forum Travel Directories
Dictionary 
Travel
Forum 
Air Travel 
No Spam
Adult 
Gambling
Unfinished
Deception
Plagiarism
Not English
