January 26, 2011

• Airplane adventures

  Yesterday we flew down to Florida to visit my parents.  Please note that this was after working the night and not getting any sleep before the trip.  Premonition for catastrophe?  Perhaps.
  
  <In my head: “I’ve done all nighters before, I’ll be on a plane, no big deal”>
  
  The first half of the trip actually went pretty well.  I fell asleep pretty quickly during the flight.  My daughter collapsed as well, which was good.  Roughly half way through our flight my lovely wife woke me up and pointed to my daughters onesy
  
  <In my head: “No big deal, just a little poop, I’m dealing with poop nearly everyday”> 
  
  Her outfit started out white… it was now greenish-brown halfway up her back.  She had blownout, however, on a plane it ups the degree of difficulty.  We maneuvered into the bathroom while  holding our cute but stinky disaster.  Next problem, the tiny airplane bathroom had no  changing table.  Wife and Sam then work against each other to try to get her out of her clothes, cleaned up, and into new clothes in cramped airplane bathroom.
  
  <In my head: “My wife rules, she can handle anything”>
  
  This would be normally be a tough enough task.  However, shortly after getting into the bathroom the pilot comes on overhead and tells us that there will be very heavy turbulence and to immediately get  to our seats.
  My wife frantically cleans and wipes the majority of stool off Samantha and changes her as fast as possible. 
  
  VROOOOMP!  (That’s the sound of insanely huge turbulence in an airplane)
  
  <In my head: “HOLY S*#&!!”>
  
  I rush to the bathroom while the flight attendants yells at me.  Wife and child are fine, she hands me our (now miraculously clean) daughter and I get back to our seats while wife tries to collect the poop covered remains of clothing.  Whew… disaster over.
  
  <Overhead Pilot voice> “If any doctors are on the flight, please come to the forward cabin”
  
  Crap!  Well, an ER doc is probably as good of a choice as any to help out in this situation.  My wife comes back to our seats.  I hand over Samantha and make it up to the front despite the pretty intense turbulence that’s happening at the time.  As it turns out, one of the flight attendants had been thrown to the ground during the big turbulence and landed on her back.  She appeared to be in pretty bad pain, and the helpful passengers, who were a little freaked out by the heavy turbulence, but still wanted to help, kept throwing pillows on her so we had roughly 23,230 pillows on top of her. 
  
  <In my head: thank goodness, more lifesaving pillows, mostly hitting me in the face>
  
  I managed to dig her out of her pillowy sarcophagus to take a quick history and physical.  She had no neurological symptoms, no neck pain, no head pain, just pain in her lower back.  Other helpful passengers started draping every blanket on the plane over her in order to secure her in place.  The problem of course is that she was in the center of the aisle, laying on her already hurt back, while we periodically had bad turbulence which threw her back onto the hard aisle on her back. 
  
  <In my head: I’m pretty sure this is just a back sprain>
  
  I rechecked her neurological status and suggested we try to get her to a seat.  By this time she was nearly mummified by the blankets and helpful people.  We managed to get her up and into a seat where she did quite well.  I had to talk to the pilot and, with a courage and compassion seen normally only in saints, explained how I was pretty sure we could just keep going to our destination.
  
  <In my head: She’s fine!  Lets get to Florida!>
  
  Some one was very helpful and got me the defibrillator while I checked out her back.  That might have come in handy if someone threw one more fricking pillow at me… 
  
  <In my head: BRRRZZZZAP!  Now keep your damn pillow, I don’t need any more>
  
  I made my way back to my seat, which was pretty awkward since everyone looked at me for news on the dying patient.  I gave lots of thumbs up and OK signs… but I didn’t want to pretend to be a hero  for diagnosis a sprained back. People clapped when I got back to my seat.  I sat there and grinned sheepishly.  That’s right, I’m a hero, I managed to help a lady to a chair.
  
  However when I got off, the pilot took me aside and told me to meet the front gate representative.  Now I was worried.  Did her status decline after I had left her seat.  She was escorted off the plain by EMS…
  
  <In  my head: oh crap oh crap oh crap!  did I miss something?>
  
  As it turns off, they just wanted to thank me and gave me a gift certificate, which was very nice.  My wife… who I had left back in her seat had managed to turn a light shade of green during the rest of the flight due to turbulence, but managed to make it without getting sick. 
  
  Overall, quite the adventure.  All this before we even started our vacation. 
  
  <In my head: Next trip to Florida, we’re going to drive>
  
  

  • 5:38 pm
  • 12 Comments