What happens if someone has a serious medical problem during a trans-ocean flight? Do they just sit and suffer or is there medical equipment of board to help? Is there a trained medical staff person on such flights? I would think it would be a nightmare to have such a problem in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. . .
Interesting timing. I was on a flight from O’Hare to San Jose, and this happened about an hour into the flight. The attendants requested a doctor, nurse or EMT, if present, to make themselves known. I heard them discussing whether or not to use the defibrilators, so I assume there was a set on board. Scary stuff.
From what I understand all the crew are trained for CPR and most “basic” first aid, however the Captain can defer to the nearest airport if he deems it necessary. I seem to remember something about a 747 landing in Gander Newfoundland a couple years back for that very reason (obviously not its final destination). As well, I seem to recall a lady dying shortly after her flight a few months ago from a blod clot, and nobody could help her. They blamed it on bad seats in coach.
I just happened to discuss some of this with a newly trained Flight Attendant. In most cases of an in-flight medical emergency, the flight will be diverted to the nearest airport. In case of an over-water flight, this particular airline (American Airlines) has defibrilators and med kits on board. FAs have basic first aid training, but aren’t authorized to give medicines (just try to get even an aspirin from an FA!). In many cases, they will ask if there is a doctor on board who can treat the victim.
There is a movement to require med kits with defibrilators on all flights, but they are only voluntary, and apparently only AA has them so far, and only on transoceanic flights. This will probably happen over the next 5 years or so.
There is a new system of remote telemetry med kits, so that someone can be wired up for ECG measurements and the data sent to a doctor on the ground. It also has video links, sorta like the “telemedicine” experiments going on today. Its all a bit experimental, but it will eventually be implemented.
In short, if you have a heart attack or other serious illness, you better hope you are near an airport. But overall, you have a much higher chance of dying due to being thrown from your seat during turbulence than from a heart attack. If you want to reduce your risk of death, the best thing to do is wear your seat belt at all times.
Flight attendants have very limited medical training (Heimlich manuver, maybe). I remember the talk about having defibrillators on board, but their use requires some training as well. Besides, they may restart the hearbeat, but won’t treat a “heart attack” So, if a passenger can make it… No, it would not be a nightmare, people die all the time, it’s part of being alive. The airlines do not charge more for dying on their property either.
Cite, please?
The NTSB aviation accident database ( http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/Query.htm ) lists two fatalities due to turbulence on U.S. air carriers over the past decade.
The defibrillators being installed on airplanes, police cars, and some public areas are highly advanced. They require very little or no formal training. One only has to look at the instruction diagram to see where to place the leads on the patient and turn on the machine. A built-in computer monitors the patient’s heart rate and rhythm and determines if, when, and how much shock to deliver. The one I saw demonstrated on TV even had a synthesized voice to tell bystanders to get back when a shock was forthcoming. Pretty cool stuff.
When I was in nursing school we did a bried training session on automated external defibrillators, and from what I saw, they are easily used by anyone who can read and follow directions. A diagram on the front shows where to place the pads, and the machine takes a reading and tells the user whether or not to press the little red button that delivers a shock. It automatically charges itself and everything.
Just a little piece of UL here, don’t know if it’s true, but one of my nursing instructors told us that the guy who invented the AED had his life saved by his own invention on (you guessed it) a trans-Atlantic flight.
Your question is quite well-timed: according to this CNN item, Virgin Atlantic is installing telemedicine tools on its fleet, which will help ground-based doctors remotely diagnose in-flight health problems.
As has been previously mentioned, several airlines have installed defibrillators on some of their aircraft, and trained flight attendants in their use. Similarly, there are several defibrillators in the terminal at O’Hare (and maybe other) airports to handle ground-based heart problems, such as those triggered when you’re told your flight is cancelled 
These two recent articles (A and B), from the very readable and credible British Medical Journal are brief, contemporary overviews of the issues at hand. Worth a look.
There was a story about this (as well as the easy-to-use new defillibrators in airports) on one of the national news shows a month or so ago.
I saw it right before my trip to Sweden, and even though I’d been across the Atlantic thrice before, and to Australia once (24 hour flight!), I realised that I had to get up and walk around every couple hours on the flight.
One of my buddies from a Canadian medical school was flying on American Airlines when some old guy collapsed. The call came. “Are they any doctors on board?” My friend was a fourth year medical student, two months and one exam away from the M.D. Should he help out?
He did. Old guy had collapsed and the Flight Attendants wanted nothing to do with it despite an easy-to-operate defibrillator (most are easy to operate, but this is taught during “Advanced” Cardiac Life Support courses). Turned out the EKG was sinus brady and the guy had a straightforward vasovagal response. No heart attack.
One of my colleagues claims that a colleague of his was awarded a cool million frequent flyer points for successfully defibrillating someone during a flight.
A million points? “Yes, I’m a doctor. Can I help?”
And of course, ALL in-flight fatalities occur exclusively on US air carriers, right?
I know of a couple of incidents in the past few years that occured on Japan Air Lines. I could probably dig up some info on these incidents, but since my sources are in Japanese, I doubt they’d be of much use to you.
These incidents tend to happen on long-haul international airlines, just due to the statistical probablility of any random turbulence incident being more likely on a 13 hour flight than a 2 hour flight.
Perhaps I overstate my case, I don’t have hard stats, but for the AVERAGE passenger, meaning someone of average health, and not on the verge of a heart attack anyway, you are more likely to be INJURED or killed by in-flight turbulence than any other factor. Or at least, this is what my sister (an airline executive) and all my airline friends tell me. And that’s what they teach the flight attendants in school.
Trust me, keep your seat belt fastened. Someday you’ll thank me for this advice. I sure wish someone had told ME, before I found myself stuck on the ceiling during a clear-air-turbulence incident.
The airline my buddy flew on didn’t want to give him squat since he didn’t really do anything. In the end they gave him a free future flight worth maybe $250 US. Don’t really believe the million miles thing.