by
Website Editor
| Jan 28, 2010
January 28, 2010 | Thursday
So after doing last minute shopping all day preparing to leave, I finally made it to bed about 10 p.m. on Tuesday night. I was tired and completely worn out, but thoughts were racing through my head and I ended up getting only about 2 hrs of sleep. I made it through the morning, and had the blessing of having most of my family at the airport to see me off.
Flying from Portland to Houston was fairly uneventful and I managed to get an additional 2 hours of sleep. I walked off of that plane and walked 2 gates down and got on the plane to Ft. Lauderdale. The flight started out fairly normal, then in about an hour or so in, I saw the two flight attends utter some select curse words and run to the back of the plane. Hmmm... Looks like someone is having a medical problem.
I sat forward in my seat in anticipation to see if I would be called back. After about a minute, a voice came on the overhead: "If there is a physician on board, please respond to the back of the plane." Whew, I thought, good thing I didn't go to medical school. However, ten seconds later, the voice came back on the overhead: "If there is a physician, nurse or EMT on board, please respond to the back of the plane." Yep, that's me... So I responded and saw an older gentleman sitting on the bench looking a little pale and anxious. Another paramedic from Florida also responded... We got his vitals, had him lie back and put his feet up, got the story and decided that he seemed to be doing fine. A little anxiety about flying, a little warmth, on blood pressure medications and standing up too quickly makes for a syncopal episode. We finished our assesment and returned to our seats. I'm sure this was nothing compared to what I will be seeing in Haiti, but hey, what a way to get things started.
Now I am in Ft. Lauderdale staying at the Comfort Inn waiting to hear if we get a flight to Santo Domingo today. From there we will be flying out Friday afternoon on a UN charter plane to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Let the adventures begin!