Charlie

Rescuing people at 35,000 ft. happens regularly, you just dont hear about it. Nevertheless, theres people who regularly faint; people who takes insulin but wrongly calculate the next time they are gong to eat, especially if the flight had been delayed; people who are so scared to fly that they have very bad panic attacks; people who have epilepsy attacks; people whose eardrums blow up; people who die in their seats ... you name it, Lilly. However, theres a specific emergency situation we always hope that it will never happen: cardiac arrests. Although we have been trained for such emergencies, and retrained on it every 12 months, cardiac arrests are probably any hostesss worse nightmare. Likely, most of us have never had to experience it in their entire flying carrier, but unfortunately I dont belong in such a category. It did happen to me and I still remember it as if it had happened yesterday. I was going somewhere in the States I dont remember which city and we were about an hour away from reaching our destination, when I saw my colleagues rescuing a man lying on the floor. I felt a sudden blast of fear. I dont know what to do. What am I supposed to do? What equipment do I need? Where is the equipment I need? How do I use it? How do I put it together? If I dont know what I need, where it is, and how to use it, then I wont be able to do anything for this mans life. I am useless. I will never be able to forgive myself for the death of this man who is dying before my eyes. I have been trained to deal with these situations and now I can do nothing. And then, just when my own impeachment was about to turn nastier, and my questions uglier, someone nudged me on my shoulder and yelled at me: Grab the defibrillator! The man is unconscious. Hes just had a heart attack! The word defibrillator then began to echo in my head. Its waves drowned my fears to death, and drench me to the skin with freezing water. I felt no fears any more, but felt no cold either. What I had become instead was pure power and energy, as if I had magically become a superwoman, equipped with magic tools, such as energy and power, which had now enabled me to think clearly and take action. I clearly saw the defibrillator in my head: it was inside a yellow container. I also saw where it was: in the dog-box by my jump seat. I then went for it. My legs were guiding me and my steps were taking me there. I opened the dog-box and sure enough the yellow container was just there. I grabbed it. I quickly joined the rest of my colleagues who were by the man. It was pure madness all around and everything was happening very quickly. One of my colleagues was on top of the dying man and was giving him chest compressions. I heard her counting 27, 28, 29, 30. Then she stopped and my other colleague, who was opposite her, started giving the man two rescue breaths, mouth to mouth. I heard a loud Fuck coming from my colleague's mouth, followed by Hes vomiting! Someone grab me the aspirator at once! The colleague standing next to me then took the aspirator, assembled it and threw it to my colleague, who plunged the long tube of the aspirator inside the mans throat and started to aspirate the vomit. While doing so, the man was receiving more chest compressions from my colleague and I was putting the defibrillator together and getting ready to use it. Now the mans lips were blue and his skin was turning white. The man was not breathing any more and was unconscious: he was in cardiac arrest. I quickly wired him to the machine by placing two pads on his chest. My colleague stopped giving him chest compressions. I then turned the defibrillator on and followed the instructions in the defibrillators display. It said that it was analysing the mans heart for any kind of activity, so I stood clear and waited for further instructions. It then said that a shock was advised so I quickly cleared the immediate area from anyone or anything touching the man and I stood clear once again, ready to shock him as soon as the machine instructed me to do so. The machine said Clear to shock so I pushed the green button. The man made a little jump from the ground, but

nothing more, and the machine started to analyse his heart once again. While this was happening I was holding my breath in the hope that the machine would instruct me to shock him again, which would mean that there was still activity in his heart and that he could still be saved. No shock advised the machine said. My eyes filled with tears, yet my grit grew even bigger. We started CPR on him once again, but this time it was another colleague of mine who was giving the man the chest compressions, as the previous one was now exhausted. The count started again 1, 2 , 3 ... 28, 29, 30. She stopped and my other colleague gave him two more rescue breaths mouth to mouth. Then the counting resumed again, followed by two rescue breaths. The man was still not breathing and was unconscious. We then prepared to shock him once again. As previously, I quickly wired the man to the machine, and my colleague stopped giving him chest compressions. I stood clear and waited for further instructions. The machine was analysing the mans heart. I held my breath once again. It said that a shock was advised and I was filled with joy and hope. I quickly cleared the immediate area from anyone and anything touching the man and stood clear, ready to shock him once again as soon as the machine instructed me to do so. The machine said Clear to shock so I pushed the green button on the machine. The man made a little jump from the ground, and once again I held my breath for any vital signs. My colleague put his ear to the mans mouth to listen for his breaths. But the engines and air conditioning were loud. Unable to hear, he turned his head sideways and placed his cheek close to the mans mouth to feel the breaths instead. Meanwhile I, and all my colleagues, stood still, holding our breath, as if time had suddenly stopped. Hes breathing, he said. We all exhaled in relief and inhaled the sound of such beautiful words. Although still unconscious, we immediately gave him some oxygen and placed him in the recovery position by pulling him onto his side. Two of us remained with the man to monitor him, while my other colleagues and I started to secure the cabin for immediate landing. As usual, we made sure passengers had their seatbelts fastened; that the aisles were clear of obstructions which might prevent people from quickly evacuating the plane in an emergency; and finally that passengers werent wearing any kind of earphones, which might prevent them from hearing any sudden commands we might need to initiate in an emergency situation. We then took our jump-seats by our respective doors and fastened ourselves as well. In front of me, just a few feet away, my two colleagues were monitoring the man, sitting on the floor just on top of the gear. I couldnt take my eyes away from them and kept repeating to myself, Get this fucking plane on the ground safely! Dont smash the fucking tyres on the ground! Then, on hearing the loud, incomparable sound of the gear coming down, my mind automatically switched into landing mode. All my senses were now on alert for anything unusual that might happen in or outside the cabin; I began to mentally run through the emergencies procedures, step by step; I envisioned myself in these procedures; I saw myself grabbing the fire extinguisher, torch, megaphone, opening the door, and shouting at passengers to quickly evacuate the plane; I recalled all the emergency announcements the pilots might make at any stage of landing and taxing, and how I was supposed to react to each and every one of them. We were now just a few feet from the ground. I held my breath and waited for the tyres to touch the ground. We touched down smoothly. I immediately looked over at my colleagues sitting on the floor: they were fine. I saw one of them lowering his head towards the oxygen mask the man was wearing over his mouth and nose. He stared at it for a few seconds, waiting to see whether or not the mask held any sign of breathing. Then my colleague looked at me and put his thumb up. The man was alive

and still breathing. Before I even realised it, the air bridge had been attached to my door, and I heard: Cabin crew, place doors to manual and cross-check. I jumped off my seat and quickly opened the door. Paramedics rushed on board, placed the man on a stretcher and took him away at once. Soon after, the passengers disembarked. As they left, I stood by the door. I clearly remember how hard it was to force a smile when passengers kept praising me as they walked by me, saying things like I cant believe youve saved that mans life or I feel safer now to fly, knowing you are also trained to save peoples lives or That could have been my father. However, they knew nothing of what I was going through at that moment as I forced a smile and waved them goodbye. I was feeling extremely exhausted and feeble, as if I had just climbed a mountain, and felt drained of any emotions, as if my ability to feel anything, such as joy, accomplishment or even contentment, had been drawn off me. I felt detached from their praise, a victim of a terrible mistake that led these people to believe it was I who had saved this mans life, when in reality it was the superwoman I had magically once become but whose existence and even the smallest traces of her had now completely gone.