A group of Air Force reservists were credited with saving the life of a man suspected of having a heart attack on a commercial flight Sept. 19.
The airmen were part of a reserve aeromedical evacuation crew from the 433rd Airlift Wing out of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.
The team was traveling on a commercial airliner from Dallas, Texas, to support patient transport missions out of Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. Roughly 45 minutes into the flight, a 74-year-old man sitting next to Staff Sgt. April Hinojos, an aeromedical evacuation technician, complained to his wife that he felt faint, according to an Air Force press release.
The elderly man’s eyelids began to flutter, and he stopped responding to questions. That’s when Hinojos helped move him to the floor and evaluated the man’s condition.
“He didn’t have a pulse, so we immediately started [chest] compressions,” Hinojos said.
Around then, the pilot came over the intercom and asked if any medical personnel were on the plane.
“I had just started the movie and through my headphones I hear someone screaming for help,” said Maj. Carolyn Stateczny, an Air Force flight nurse.
The rest of the aeromedical crew was scattered throughout the plane and began working their way through the aisles to Hinojos and the man.
1st Lt. Laura Maldonado, another flight nurse, gathered the plane’s medical supplies for the airmen and Stateczny prepared an automated external defibrillator.
Capt. Justin Stein, the third flight nurse on the team, was unable to start the man on intravenous fluids because his blood vessels were constricted, possibly due to the suspected heart attack.
Tech. Sgts. Robert Kirk and Edgar Ramirez, both aeromedical evacuation technicians, worked on the man’s airway and provided oxygen.
“I’ve been a nurse for 16 years; in my expertise, I thought he was dead,” Stateczny said in the release. “He was completely grayish, his lips were blue, and his eyes had rolled to the back of his head. He was not responding at all. He had no pulse.”
The elderly man’s wife, naturally distraught, was moved to the rear of the plane.
Stateczny then requested the pilots land the plane at the next airport available so the man could get the required medical attention.
After getting the automated external defibrillator pads on the man, Stateczny said, he moaned, developed a pulse and started to recover.
They continued with oxygen and kept trying to start an IV.
“He slowly started arousing,” said Statezcny. “It took some time, and he could tell us his name. He started getting some color, and then asked ‘What’s going on?’”
The man thought he had just passed out, according to the release.
The plane diverted to Little Rock, Arkansas, where emergency medical services were waiting to take over patient care.
Aeromedical evacuation squadron members serve in a variety of military occupations, including nurses, medical technicians and administrative specialists. The crews are typically tasked out to help with events like natural disasters, caring for war wounded or routine medical transportation by air.
The crews usually consist of five people — two nurses and three medical technicians — and they carry with them all the necessary equipment to turn any cargo aircraft into a flying ambulance.
Kyle Rempfer was an editor and reporter who has covered combat operations, criminal cases, foreign military assistance and training accidents. Before entering journalism, Kyle served in U.S. Air Force Special Tactics and deployed in 2014 to Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and Baghdad, Iraq.
