I know that on most Domestic US flights, doctors, nurses, and paramedics are not permitted to open the medical bag unless their identity (and license) are confirmed by a flight medical group, and even at that, in situations where there is no doctor on the flight (but a paramedic or RN is), they will act upon the authority of a ground based doctor who approves all medication use.
In 2004, I was on a flight from CMH -> SJC and there was a medical emergency. At the time, I was a licensed paramedic, and pressed my call button when there was a page for 'medical personnel on the flight' after some delay when nobody else pressed their button. A flight attendant came up, asked me what my training was, and went to the front to call somewhere. A few minutes later, she brought a bag and took me to the back galley and handed me an airphone with a doctor on the other end, who confirmed with me the proper dosing and timing of ACLS drugs as we worked together to stabilize a patient. The process itself was like riding around with a doctor in the back of an ambulance -- he was very methodical about asking questions and quickly approved medication within reason at my discretion.
Ultimately, the flight was diverted, the patient was (very quickly) offboarded from the back galley and after some fuel for the plane, we were back on our way to SJC.
US Airways gave me a fair amount of miles (50K? 100K? I don't remember the exact number), upgraded the rest of my flight to first class, and provided me Platinum status for the rest of the year, along with a few other trinkets/swag pieces.
Not always imo. A British doctor was able to provide care on. Jetblue flight when no one else was available. Of course they can't check British Medical registration but they were happy nonetheless to allow care to be provided as no one else was available. No pharmaceuticals were given of course however.
Certainly great customer service, but also a very good business decision by the airline. With an average cost of $100k per diversion, 54 diversions cost Lufthansa ~$5.4m annually.
With a conservative 40% of urgent cases being treatable under the Doctors on Board program, that's a $2.16m saving.
Cost of such a program is next to negligible - airlines spend hundreds of $ per flyer per year marketing in various ways to frequent flyers. A €50 discount voucher per flyer certainly won't break the bank.
My friends family got stuck with a very sick child on the other side of the world and needed to go home. They managed to raise the funds needed amoung friends and family and used this plane conversion to get safely home. Im very grateful this can be done and I don't want to think about what could have happened if it didn't.
Interesting. I was on a Lufthansa flight last week and they had a call asking for a doctor/emt/paramedic on the PA, however the flight was not diverted. I'm not sure what happened. This was on an 11 hour SFO-FRA flight.
Same thing happened to me (LH 0455 25 DEC) -- maybe we were on the same flight?
It was an older passenger about 5 seats across from me in Premium Economy. He looked to be having some kind of illness, age, or pre existing condition difficulty, not anything I could deal with (I know trauma care reasonably well from SF medics and working in a hospital, and some dive medicine stuff, but do t have any certification beyond first responder stuff), so I didn't do anything.
I was fairly surprised there were no medical people on the flight. I did notice some of the flight crew checking in on him periodically, and he seemed to de-plane normally, wasn't met with an ambulance, etc.
They should also start caring about their basic comfort. I am 1.90 and had to take 12 hour flight with them. The seats were so close to each other so I could barely walk after the flight after we landed. I believe adding more and more rows of seats is really absurd.
Everyone says this, and yet everyone buys the cheapest ticket at the most convenient time. If consumers cared enough to pay more for better seats, they would have paid extra for the airlines with better seats. They didn't.
No the shouldn't. For most of us economy seats work quite fine. I'm 1.89 and regularly have 12+ hour flights with Lufthansa. I prefer cheaper tickets to a little bit more legroom that I don't really need. And if those seats wouldn't be sufficient, I'd just buy Economy Plus tickets instead of complaining about economy tickets.
To quote the great: "you are in a seat, in the air, flying 1000km/h... it's a miracle". Without the planes, it would take 2 weeks to cross Atlantic. So love it already ;-)
[+] [-] imroot|10 years ago|reply
I know that on most Domestic US flights, doctors, nurses, and paramedics are not permitted to open the medical bag unless their identity (and license) are confirmed by a flight medical group, and even at that, in situations where there is no doctor on the flight (but a paramedic or RN is), they will act upon the authority of a ground based doctor who approves all medication use.
In 2004, I was on a flight from CMH -> SJC and there was a medical emergency. At the time, I was a licensed paramedic, and pressed my call button when there was a page for 'medical personnel on the flight' after some delay when nobody else pressed their button. A flight attendant came up, asked me what my training was, and went to the front to call somewhere. A few minutes later, she brought a bag and took me to the back galley and handed me an airphone with a doctor on the other end, who confirmed with me the proper dosing and timing of ACLS drugs as we worked together to stabilize a patient. The process itself was like riding around with a doctor in the back of an ambulance -- he was very methodical about asking questions and quickly approved medication within reason at my discretion.
Ultimately, the flight was diverted, the patient was (very quickly) offboarded from the back galley and after some fuel for the plane, we were back on our way to SJC.
US Airways gave me a fair amount of miles (50K? 100K? I don't remember the exact number), upgraded the rest of my flight to first class, and provided me Platinum status for the rest of the year, along with a few other trinkets/swag pieces.
[+] [-] robk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themartorana|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skyhatch1|10 years ago|reply
With a conservative 40% of urgent cases being treatable under the Doctors on Board program, that's a $2.16m saving.
Cost of such a program is next to negligible - airlines spend hundreds of $ per flyer per year marketing in various ways to frequent flyers. A €50 discount voucher per flyer certainly won't break the bank.
[+] [-] fredrikcarno|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryan-c|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|10 years ago|reply
It was an older passenger about 5 seats across from me in Premium Economy. He looked to be having some kind of illness, age, or pre existing condition difficulty, not anything I could deal with (I know trauma care reasonably well from SF medics and working in a hospital, and some dive medicine stuff, but do t have any certification beyond first responder stuff), so I didn't do anything.
I was fairly surprised there were no medical people on the flight. I did notice some of the flight crew checking in on him periodically, and he seemed to de-plane normally, wasn't met with an ambulance, etc.
[+] [-] toddkazakov|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superuser2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brandonmenc|10 years ago|reply
Because that's what the rest of us would be paying for coach if all the seats were big enough to comfortably fit you.
[+] [-] gst|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] limaoscarjuliet|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xufi|10 years ago|reply