Nausheen Ahmed, a KU blood cancer doctor, helped save a passenger during a medical emergency on a flight home from Seattle to Kansas City - Photo Yahoo News Canada
Pakistani Doctor Gives Aid on Plane during Mid-Air Medical Emergency
By Toriano Porter
Nausheen Ahmed couldn’t help but hear a flight attendant’s cry for help on a flight from Seattle to Phoenix. When she did, Ahmed, associate director of the cell therapy program at the University of Kansas Medical Center, sprang into action. A passenger on the flight was having some sort of medical emergency, Ahmed said. She didn’t know if the unidentified man suffered a seizure or a heart attack, but he did not look well.
Doctor or not, I couldn’t imagine what Ahmed or anyone on that plane were thinking. We live in a time where the slightest interruption would send any of us into a frenzy.
“It was scary,” Ahmed said. “Even as a medical professional, no one really knows what to do with a fellow passenger having an emergency. The key is to stay calm,” Ahmed said in an interview. Ahmed was on a return trip from Dubai when this unexpected call for help came. She had spent a week with family there on vacation, but returned alone because she had pressing business in the United States. Little did Ahmed know she’d be called into action on a flight she wasn’t supposed to be on.
She was scheduled to fly from Dubai to Seattle and straight back to Kansas City on one airline, but the flight had issues, she said. Instead, Ahmed took another airline from Seattle to Kansas City with a layover in Phoenix. About one hour before landing in Arizona on Aug. 3, a fellow passenger fell ill. When a flight attendant screamed for help, Ahmed and a nurse identified as Allison Fowler Tolbert of Marshall Medical Center North in Alabama went to work.
Ahmed said the patient’s heart rate was low and he was pale. “It looked like he was having a seizure,” she said. Despite being a medical doctor for more than 20 years, Ahmed felt a nervous tension come over her as she and the nurse she had never met worked feverishly to render aid to the ailing passenger. “I tried to stabilize the patient. We got him oxygen and we got him two aspirin just in case he was having a heart attack.”
At KU, Ahmed is a physician specializing in blood cancer, blood disorders and blood marrow transplants. She said she was out of her element on the airplane, but that did not prevent her from taking action. “Even for a medical professional, this was a different environment,” she said. “This was not a controlled environment. There were a lot of unknowns.” Within five minutes, the patient stabilized, according to Ahmed. She and Tolbert stayed by the passenger’s side until the flight safely landed in Phoenix. They gave him water and orange juice, and checked his blood pressure regularly, “every 15 minutes,” according to Ahmed.
Honored by Pakistan Society of KC Ahmed is a Muslim Pakistani American physician from Overland Park, according to a media release. On Aug. 14, Irshad Cheema, Secretary General of the Pakistan American Society of Greater Kansas City, plans to honor Ahmed as part of the Pakistan Independence Day celebration at Heritage Park in Olathe. In a statement, Cheema said he was very proud of Ahmed “for her heroic act in the mid-air in an effort to save the life of a fellow American.”
Mohamed Herbert, an imam at the Islamic Center of Johnson County, also congratulated Ahmed for what he described in a statement as “selfless care, compassion and mercy for fellow humans.”
Ahmed described the experience as a powerful eye-opener. She said her goal is to raise awareness about in-flight medical resources and the crucial role airline crews play in responding to emergencies. After the ordeal, Ahmed said she quickly discovered that US carrier aircraft with one or more flight attendants are required to have a US Food and Drug Administration-approved automated external defibrillators, first-aid kits and emergency medical kits containing essential tools for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Oxygen tanks are frequently available, she said. She also noted the importance of flight attendants who are trained in CPR and emergency protocols and have contact with medical teams on the ground. What she didn’t say but I would like to point out is how important it was for her and everyone involved to stay levelheaded. I am sure the man that was attended to was thankful for such a measured approach.
It’s not every day that a doctor is literally in the house, as the long-held expression goes. According to the media release, the unidentified patient tearfully remarked “that God works in mysterious ways — a sentiment that echoed with everyone involved.” For her part, Ahmed said she is thankful and humbled by the experience but quickly noted she had help from a caring nurse and well-trained flight attendants on board. She plans to use the lifesaving award presented to her next week to raise awareness to an important cause. “We do this as a profession; we try to save people’s lives,” she said. “But I want to use this award to raise awareness of medical emergencies in flight.”
(Toriano Porter is an opinion writer and member of The Star’s editorial board. He’s received statewide, regional and national recognition for reporting since joining McClatchy in 2012. - The Kansan City Star)
