‘It’s what we do’: 2 Costa Mesa firefighters help save man on flight
They were 36,000 feet above Colorado when an emergency call sounded over the airliner’s intercom.
A man had lost consciousness in the restroom. He was turning blue.
Flight attendants had opened the door and the man, a 91-year-old traveling with his daughter and friends for a vacation, rolled out of the cramped compartment onto the floor. The flight attendants called for someone with medical training to assist.
Jason Pyle, a Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue division chief, was sitting in Row 17 of the Delta Air Lines jet, trying to find a movie to watch on his tablet for the remainder of the flight. The plane was scheduled to land in Orange County that night, and its cabin was darkened to accommodate sleeping passengers.
Join the conversation on Facebook >>
Pyle, fire engineer Steve Cathey and fleet maintenance supervisor Gant Corum were flying home from Appleton, Wis., on Jan. 13 after doing final inspections on two new fire engines for the department.
Pyle heard the call for help and immediately got up to see what he could do.
With the assistance of the flight attendants, Pyle slid the 6-foot-1 man to a portion of the plane where they could stretch him out and begin to render aid.
“He was in a ball in obvious distress,” Pyle said. “He was blue.”
Cathey, who was in his seat watching the film “Deepwater Horizon” with noise-canceling headphones, was oblivious to the scene unfolding in the back of the plane until he heard his partner shout his name.
“When the flight attendants came up to get me, I heard Chief Pyle call out my name and instantly I knew ‘OK, there’s something going on,’” Cathey said.
For Pyle, the few seconds it took to get Cathey felt like an eternity.
“I’m looking at the man thinking we’re going to need to start CPR in a few seconds and there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that without Steve,” Pyle said. “There’s a tone that I just yelled through the plane. It’s interesting [that] even through noise-canceling headphones, when you’ve worked with someone so long and you hear a certain tone of voice, that call means something.”
The group was soon joined by a nurse and a cardiovascular surgeon who helped stabilize the man with the minimal emergency resources aboard the plane. They suspected at the time that he was having a cardiac issue, but further medical treatment at a hospital revealed he wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
The pilot diverted the flight to Denver, where it landed within minutes. By then, the man was conscious and talking.
Cathey spoke with the man’s daughter and chronicled some of his medical history to make the hand-off to Denver fire officials easier.
After Denver firefighters took the man, the plane was in the air again in less than 10 minutes. It touched down at John Wayne Airport at 11:20 p.m.
Two family friends who were traveling with the man stayed on the plane but didn’t have a ride from the airport, so Cathey drove them to Los Alamitos.
The family has since reached out to Cathey and Pyle to thank them and update them on the man’s condition. He’s doing well, they say.
Pyle said quick thinking by the flight attendants saved the man’s life. They realized after the man went into the bathroom and didn’t come out that they should check on him, he said.
“They saw something out of the ordinary and they acted on it,” Pyle said. “By doing that, they found him and did the next best thing ... they asked for help. If they had done nothing and left him in there, he probably would have had less of a stellar result.”
Cathey and Pyle said they’ve encountered other emergency situations while off duty and always stopped to help. Neither had ever had an emergency on a plane but figured it was bound to happen at some point.
“We’re firemen when we’re on duty and we’re firemen the rest of the time too,” Cathey said. “It’s what’s instilled within us. It’s what we do.”
--
Hannah Fry, [email protected]
Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
