When your flight crew asks if there’s a physician onboard,
chances are your fellow passenger-in need is severely woozy, wheezy or queasy: the three most common in-flight medical emergencies, according to a first-of-its-kind study on airplane illnesses released Wednesday.
Fainting flyers account for 37 percent of cases in which flight crews must radio doctors on the ground to seek advice, while cardiac problems most often prompt pilots to land at the nearest airport, reports an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But sit back and relax: Researchers found that aside from the need for anti-nausea pills to be stocked in every commercial airliner, the current pre-flight health coaching for airline employees – and the medical tools at their disposal – are usually more than enough to coax ill flyers through bumpy medical moments.
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“For the vast majority of emergencies, there is sufficient assistance onboard both in terms of flight attendants who receive training on the use of a defibrillator or performing CPR, as well as the contents of onboard medical kits,” said Dr. Christian Martin-Gill, a co-author of the study.
