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This chapter has been reprinted from Life on a Postcard (Olympia Publishers, 2022) with permission from the author. 

Postcard No. 30

And the Breasts Got in The Way

Dear Mother, 

I didn’t think medical emergencies could get worse than having to deliver a baby at 35,000 ft and injecting an 18-year-old boy in the heart. Once I had done that, I was ready for anything. They could throw anything at me and I would be ready for it. What could possibly be more challenging than that?

Well, for starters…

We were over the Atlantic, about an hour away from Atlanta in the US. The captain had just turned on the seatbelt signs as there was some "clear air turbulence” ahead. Don’t ask me what that means. I’m not sure whether the opposite would be polluted air turbulence or cloudy air turbulence. However, we began to check the passengers and I was just passing the mid-galley, when we hit a huge pocket of air and dropped about 50 ft in one fell swoop. No pun there at all. That is what it was like: a swoop.

Some of the canisters fell out of the stowage above the seats and one hit a colleague on the head and he literally passed out in front of me. I ran to help him but one of the other crew got to him first and started to administer first aid. I ran into the cabin to see if anyone else was hurt and started checking the passengers; all had their seatbelts on. 

The plane was now shaking from side to side like a giant had got hold of the aluminum tube and was shaking it, trying to extract the last drop of his favorite drink. The overhead lockers were opening with the violent rattling and bags were falling out everywhere.

As I went down the aisle, a gentleman grabbed me and pointed to the passenger next to him. She was either asleep — highly unlikely as the turbulence was enough to wake the dead… poor choice of thought really — or she had passed out. I looked around to see if anything had hit her on the head or whether she had any head injuries. The gentleman assured me nothing had struck the passenger. She had passed out the moment the turbulence started but before that she had been clutching at her chest and trying to take her clothes off, as if they were restricting her.

I shouted to one of my colleagues, "Get the defib. I think she’s had a heart attack.”

"You’re kidding me!” my colleague shouted, as he tried to put some of the baggage back into the overhead lockers and reassure the passengers at the same time. 

"I wish I was,” I shouted back.

I asked the male passenger to help me and together we placed the lady in the aisle. I was just about to commence CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) on her when the aircraft, which had now been shuddering at an even pace (and I had got used to the rhythm of the turbulence), suddenly dropped another 50 ft, sending the lady and me sliding a few rows down the aisle towards the galley. Finally, when we came to a stop, I started CPR.

I gave her a few puffs and then started the chest compressions. I tried to rip off her blouse, which was a front-buttoned one. Have you ever tried to rip off a front-buttoned blouse? Not just ripping it off but doing that in heavy turbulence? Well, I can tell you, it’s not like you see in the movies, where the buttons fly and pop everywhere with one yank. I yanked and yanked and it would not rip off. Finally, I thought it would be quicker to unbutton it one button at a time. However, before I could start doing that, the defibrillator was thankfully by my side. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kit always had a pair of scissors meant for this very purpose. I got them out and made sure I steadied myself with one hand, while another crew member supported me. 

I cut carefully through her blouse and was dismayed at the sight that met my eyes: she had the largest boobs I had ever seen. 

Talk about "over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders” — it was going to take me a month to cut through her bra. 

Luckily, it seemed to have a weak point as I cut through the bit in the middle of the cups. As I did so, her breasts fell out and I really did feel like Harrison Ford in one of those Indiana Jones movies — each time I overcame one challenging task, I was faced with another. I was just trying to decide where to place the defib and whether her breasts would inhibit the contact, when they both flopped to either side of her and lay neatly under each arm. For the first time in my life I shouted, "Thank god for saggy boobs!”

These are not the kind of obstacles they tell you about in training school. Oh no, they don’t warn you about large boobs or cutting bras.

I finally managed to get the defib in the right place and my colleague and I worked in tandem: CPR, mouth to mouth, chest compressing, defib. But she was flat lined. We couldn’t see any fibrillation. No vital signs. Nothing. 

She wasn’t travelling with anyone, so we couldn’t get any further information. One of our colleagues had gone through her handbag to see if she had any preconditions or anything that would help us.

After 40 minutes, we were exhausted. The turbulence had passed but neither of us was ready to let her go. Two of our other colleagues were getting ready to take over when we saw a flicker. We kept going till she suddenly threw up all over us. 

She coughed and spluttered everywhere. We turned her onto her side, gently removed all the debris from her mouth and put her in the recovery position. As we got to our feet covered in vomit and drool, we were met with the loudest applause I had ever heard.

Passengers were standing in their seats and on their seats, clapping as we walked down the aisle smelling of vomit and about to throw up ourselves.

But that didn’t detract from the feeling of complete euphoria. 

At that moment, I was almost grateful at the way my life had turned out.

And there ended one of my many postcards to Mother. 

How exactly did I get here? How exactly did I end up cutting the bra straps of a big-busted woman and saving her life?

I thought you would never ask!